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“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND 
LATIN LITERATURE 


A DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 


DEPARTMENT OF GREEK 





BY 
ELIZA GREGORY WILKINS 





Private Edition, Distributed By 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 


CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
1917 


The Collegiate Press 
GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 


MENASHA, WISCONSIN 


Pl ¢ 
/ / \/ 2) 
MAC, \ 
CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I 
PAGE 
INTRODUCTION 


The inscriptions at Delphi—their number, authorship, date, etc. Dis- 
cussions of yvO cavrdov in antiquity. Importance attached to yr cavrdv by 
AM eM URE, ocular hehe eyelash ks anes asds ear sucess damkdsbabckeabaddaasovadonavseausessecksichse Lespeodntedal 1 


CHAPTER II 


INQOI TATTON As Know Your MEASURE 


Earliest apparent reference to the maxim, in Heracleitus. Aeschylus’ 
use of the apophthegm. Interpretation of Pindar, Pythian II, 34. Tv&6e cavrov 
as ‘Know your Measure’ in Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle. Historical charac- 
ters who did not know themselves—Alcibiades and Alexander. The above 
meaning for the maxim in Cicero and Juvenal. Significance of title of chapters 
BE AMAT 122 OL HOPOURCNS PLOTS RTI 56h ik eked Gonos ek kakchulapatcandessitobael daceesecvedeas 12 


CHAPTER III 


TNQOI TATTON As Know Wuat You CAn AnNp CANNoT Do 


As an injunction not to over-estimate one’s ability. As an injunction not 
to under-estimate one’s ability. As an injunction to know one’s special bent. 
As an injunction to know what one can do in the realm of Will......0.0000000... 23 


CHAPTER IV 


TNQOI TATTON As Know Your Prace. Its RELATION To SQSPOSTNH 


T'vG6t cavrévy apparently a current definition of swepocivn. Connection of 
the two in Aristotle’s Ethics. Common use of the maxim in this sense. Con- 
nection between yv cavrdv and the etymological meaning of sH¢por in Plato’s 
Timaeus. The phrase 76 dyvociv éavrév used of mental derangement as well 
as by way of suggestion of yv&0 cavrév. The blending of the two meanings of 
76 &yvoetv éavrdv in KXenophon’s Memorabilia. The later tendency to make 
yv@0 cavrév include other virtues as well aS cweppoobynen..ccccccccccsccscscseesserscsessveees 33: 


CHAPTER V 


TNQOI STATTON As Know Tue Limits Or Your WisDom 


Socrates’ life-long search after self-knowledge. The false conceit of knowl- 
edge a universal fault. The use of yv&@. cavrév in the above sense by Xenophon, 
Aristophanes, and Isocrates. Later uses of the maxim with this connotation. 
Pe ee MIR ek tise easbocitnhos sucess Iedcsevenestynsaciabveduder peewee wachureesobe nal teD Ae oa holon 


CHAPTER VI 


TNQOI TATTON As KNow Your Own FAULTS — 


This use of the maxim as applied to the individual, irrespective of others. 
Man’s proneness to see others’ faults rather than his own. The fable of the 
two sacks brought into connection with yv@Oe GAUTOV.....ccccccscccssscssssessessseeseeesens 46 


AYP AA 4 


CHAPTER VII 
INQOEI SATTON As Know You ArE HumMAN AND MortTAt 


PAGE 

The injunction to think mortal thoughts a common-place of Greek litera- 

ture. Instances of the use of 7v@O cavrdv in this SeNSE...........cceeceeccsessseceeeceee 52 
CHAPTER VIII 


TNQOGI SATTON As Know Your Own Sour 


The soul the real self, as discussed in Alcibiades I. The antithesis between 
soul and body led to an emphasis upon the knowledge of each separately, and 
upon a knowledge of the relation between them. Since the soul is the man, 
v0. cavtév means to know man, and hence to be a philosopher. Resultant 
tendency of the Stoics to centre all their philosophy around yv&& cavrév. The 
Neo-Platonists’ application of the maxim to a knowledge of the psychological 
divisions of the soul. Its connection with the idea of self-consciousness. Its 
relation to certain of the soul’s activities...0........c..ccccccesscssesesseesesecssesecsesserseeeenecess 60 


CHAPTER IX 


TNQOI SATTON Is Dirricutt. How ATTAINED? 


“‘TyG6c cavrov is difficult” an old saying. Difficulty of knowing self versus 
knowing others. Self-knowledge limited to the philosophers. Perfect self- 
knowledge unattainable. Means to self-knowledge suggested by various writers 
—through dialectic, through a friend, through theatrical performances, through 
literature, through a knowledge of the Universe, through a knowledge of God. 


CHAPTER X 


TNQOI SATTON In EArty ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE 


The maxim asserted to have been borrowed by the Greeks from Hebrew 
writers. Ecclesiastical discussions of self-knowledge reflect various Stoic appli- 
cations of yv&6: cavrév, and the influence of Plato and the Neo-Platonists. Self- 
knowledge of the Angels, the Trinity, etc. Self-knowledge a necessary help 
toward a knowledge of God. Doctrines related to yv&& cavrév by the Church 
Fathers distinctively—self-knowledge as a realization that God created man 
in His own image; self-knowledge as a recognition of man’s sinfulness and need 
of repentance; self-knowledge as including a belief in man’s immortality.......... 89 


List Or PAssaces IN WuicH THE MAxtm Is ExpRESSED OR IMPLIED...:*.100 


PREFACE 


The Delphic maxim ‘‘ Know Thyself” has occurred so frequently 
in the literature of every age from the fifth century B. C. down to 
our own day that it may seem at first thought too well-worn a theme 
for fresh discussion. But modern use of it, whether in the title of 
a book or a play, or in the incidental pointing of a moral in some 
literary work, takes little account, as a rule, of its ancient con- 
notation; and no systematic attempt has been made hitherto to 
discover its meanings for the Greeks themselves. It has been the 
aim of this study to determine the sense in which the Ancients in- 
terpreted the maxim, by collecting the instances of its actual or 
implied presence in the extant writings of the Greeks and Romans 
down to about 500 A. D. It is possible that in covering so exten- 
sive a field some more or less important passages may have been over- 
looked, but they would probably not affect the categories indicated. 

It is with sincere gratitude that I here acknowledge my indebted- 
ness to Professor Paul Shorey of the University of Chicago for the 
subject of this investigation, and for many an illuminating sug- 
gestion during the progress of the work. 

E1izA GREGORY WILKINS. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2007 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation ~ 


https://archive.org/details/knowthyselfingreOOwilkrich 


CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 


When Socrates in Plato’s Protagoras' is discussing certain verses 
of Simonides which refer toan apophthegm of Pittacus— Xanemdv éob Adv 
éuyevat, he explains that this is one of the numerous examples of the 
Old-time Wisdom, an instance of Laconian Bpaxvdoyia, and he turns 
by way of illustration to the inscriptions at Delphi. ‘‘Thales the 
-Milesian,” he says, “and Pittacus the Mitylenian, and Bias the 
Prienian, and our Solon, and Cleobulus the Lindian, and Myson 
the Chenian, and the seventh—Lacedaemonian Chilon . .. met 
together and dedicated the first-fruits of wisdom to Apollo at the 
temple at Delphi, writing these sayings which are on everybody’s 
tongue, Tva@i cavrdv and Mnyéev a&yav.” While this passage raises 
no questions regarding the interpretation of yv@i& cavrov, it may 
serve as a fitting introduction to a consideration of the Delphic 
inscriptions in general—their number, their authorship, and their 
exact location on the temple. Besides the two given above we know 
positively of three others—the “Eyyin, rapa & arn, mentioned by 
Plato in the Charmides,? by Diogenes Laertius’ and others; Oc jpa, 
cited by Varro,* and perhaps reflected in the ‘‘sequi deum”’ of Cic- 
ero’s De Finibus I1I:22; and a large E, known to us chiefly through 
Plutarch’s treatise entitled De E apud Delphos. The scholiasts on 
Lucian’ and on Dio Chrysostom® give seven inscriptions, attributing 
one to each of the Seven Sages, and there is a manuscript’ in the 
Laurentian Library at Florence containing ninety-two sayings, 
which bears the title Maxims of the Seven Sages Which Were Found 
Carved on the Pillar at Delphi.® The late scholiasts on Lucian and 
Dio Chrysostom, however, are hardly to be relied upon,® and the 


1343 A-B. 

2165 A. 

94,3, 6% IX, 11, 8: 

4 Sat. Menip. XXIX, 16. Ed. Reise p. 130. 

5 On Phalar. I, 7. 

§ Quoted by Schultz in Philologus XXIV, p. 203, n. 62. 

7 Philologus XXIV, p. 215. 

8 ray entra. copay TapayyéAuata ariva eipOnoar Kexo\appeva él rod &v Aedgois klovos. 
See Philologus XXIV, p. 193 and pp. 215 ff. Mullach. Frag. Phil. Graec. Vol. I, 
p. 212 ff. brings together the apophthegms which ancient writers attributed to 
the Seven Wise Men severally and collectively. 

® Philologus XXIV, p. 203. 


2 ‘““KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


compiler of the Ilapayyé\uara of the Wise Men was undoubtedly 
confused” in assigning to Delphi so many sayings which are no- 
where else mentioned as belonging there. So, too, according to 
Photius and Suidas, some people classed another proverb—the rip 
“Kata cavrov éka—as a IIvOuxdv drdgGeyua, and with like error. 


Modern discussion of the inscriptions at Delphi is concerned 
chiefly with the meaning of the E and with the arrangement of the 
sayings, certain scholars holding conservatively to the five known 
surely to have been there, and others seeking to find trace of enough 
more to make possible an arrangement in hexameters. The meaning 
of the letter E was evidently not clear to the men of later antiquity, 
as Plutarch’s treatise shows. He gives in the main five possible 
explanations, two based on the supposition that the E is a real E, . 
the fifth letter of the alphabet, and three on the supposition that 
it represents the diphthong EI. If the E is a simple E, he suggests 
that there were originally five Sages instead of seven and that this 
fifth letter registered a protest against the claims of the other two;1" 
or again, that the E may have the mystical meanings connécted 
with the number five.” If the letter represents the diphthong, he 
fancies that it may be the conjunction ¢i!® used in asking questions 
of the God—if one should marry, 7f one should go on a voyage, 
and the like; or the argumentative z/,“ honored by a God who fav- 
ored logic; or, further, that it may be the second person singular 
of the verb eivi and mean ‘‘ Thou art”—the worshipper’s recognition 
of the fact that God alone possesses true Being. This treatise of 
Plutarch’s is the only ancient discussion of the E in our extant 
literature, and almost the only allusion to it, but the letter occurs 
on the recently discovered omphalos,!’ and also on some coins of the 
time of Hadrian which represent the temple front.'® 


10 Thid. p. 217. 

ok ars 

2c.7 &8. Cf. Athenaeus 453D—<ddrAga>, Bara, yaupa, d€Ara, Oeod yap el, 
far’, fiTa. ... 

oe, ae 

Mert: 

®¢. 17. 

16 Plut. De def. orac. 31, and a frag. of a Lexicon (See Bursian Geog. I, 175, 
note 5) refer to the E. 

17 See Year’s Work in Classical Studies for 1915, pp. 73-74. 

* Frazer on Pausanias X, 19, 4, Vol. V, p. 340. Also Hermes XXXVI, p. 
476. 


“KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 3 


Among the first of modern scholars to concern himself with the 
inscriptions was Goettling. He accepts Plutarch’s last suggestion 
that the E represents the verb form é, but he thinks it was addressed 
not to the God but to the worshipper, and renders it: ‘‘Du hast 
als geschaffenes, verniinftiges Wesen ein Selbst bewusstsein, bist 
Mensch.’ Schultz interprets it similarly, but Roscher, in an 
article published in 1900, suggests a different explanation. He thinks 
that the E is the diphthong ¢, but he regards it as an imperative form, 
like the other Delphic inscriptions, and belonging rather to the verb 
efuu—a form found in compounds,” and, according to his view, oc- 
curring as a simple verb in Homer.” This he translates not ‘‘go” 
but “come,” and says that it is a word of welcome and assurance 
to the trembling worshipper. Still another view has been promul- 
gated by Lagercrantz, who thinks that the E represents an 7 and 
means ‘“‘He said.”” He thus regards it not as one of the Spriiche, 
but as the verb which introduces them, with Apollo understood as 
subject. : 


Goettling and Roscher have both been interested in arranging 
these inscriptions in verse form, and they have had no difficulty in 
making an hexameter of 

TyaOt cavrov, Mnéev ayav, "Evyyta rapa 5’ arn, 
by treating the v and a in ’Eyyia as a case of synezesis.2 Then 
Goettling, on the supposition that there were seven” Spriiche, at- 
tempted to fill out the first line by using the word xémie and a phrase 
which Suidas and the Paroemiograph connect with Tva6c cavrév 
as Hapayyéduara IvAixa, and he produced the following: 
el. Oc fpa. <Kourte> rapal 76 vououa xapakor. 
The xéuee Goettling renders “sei hilfreich’”’ and thinks we would 
naturally consider our relation to men after honoring God.™ The 
Tapal TO voutoua xapatov he takes with the O€G jpa to mean ‘der 


19 A bhandlungen I, p. 236. 
20 Philologus LIX, pp. 25-26. ee (Clouds 633) mpdca (Epictet. Enchir. 32, 2). 
*1 In the phrase ¢ 5’ aye, which he would write ef, 5’ dye. 
22 Abhandlungen I, p. 228. 
*8 Goettling thinks Plato’s and Pausanias’ statement that the Seven Wise 
- Men met at Delphi and inscribed the sayings indicates that the sayings were 
seven in number, and that perhaps the number of sayings started the tradition 
of the Seven Wise Men. 

*4 Abhandlungen I, p. 248. 

% Thid. 244. 


4 ‘“kNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


Gottheit sollst du dienen, nicht menschlichen Satzungen.””% This 
TO vououa trapaxapatov, however, was not a Delphic inscription, as 
Suidas says, but it apparently originated in a statement of Dio- 
genes the Cynic in the IIddaos, a lost play attributed to him in ancient 
times,?” to the effect that God had bidden him yv&& cavrév® and 
Trapaxapatov To vomopua.2® Diogenes Laertius says that according 
to a certain story this command was an answer to the Cynic’s ques- 
tion as to how he could win distinction among men,*® and Julian 
likewise treats rapaxydpatov 76 vououa not as a maxim but as an 
oracle given to Diogenes specifically.*! 

Roscher in his turn, acting on the supposition that there were 
seven Spriiche because of the prevalence of that number in connec- 
tion with the Apollo cult,® filled out the first line with two other 
sayings taken from the Ilapayyédwara Ilvéiuxa. He makes the verse 
read: 

ei. Oe joa. vouors weifev. eidev Te xpdvoro. 
He selects the vouors weifov on account of a passage in Marcus Anto- 
ninus*—éxoddvOnoov beg. Exelvos wev Gnow Sri TayTa vowori . . .—and 
another in Xenophon’s Memorabilia,® where Apollo when asked 
how any one could please the Gods, replies “vou odews.’ The 
geldev xpovoco he thinks is reflected in the statement in Cicero’s De 


%* PP, 239. 

27 Diogenes Laertius VI, 2, 1 (20). Julian says it is a matter of dispute 
whether Diogenes wrote these plays or his disciple Philiscus. Or. VII, 210 C-D. 

28 We are not told distinctly that yv@@ cavrév was in the Iddados, but it 
seems the natural way to account for its use in this connection later. 

29 For the ambiguous meaning of this phrase see Diog. Laert. VI, II, 1 (20). 
He tells us in effect that out of the one meaning a story arose charging Diogenes, 
who was the son of a banker, with adulterating the coinage. Its metaphorical 
meaning of disdaining custom or convention occurs more frequently, however. 
Cf. sec. 71: rovadra deekeyero kal wordy épaivero byrws voutoua TapaxapaTtwr, pndev 
odrw Tots Kara véuov as Tots kara gbaw d5obs. See also Julian Or. VII, 211 B-C: 
Ti 5¢ elma & Beds, Go’ toner; Sri THs TY wo\NSv adtS Sokns, ewerakey bwepopay Kal 
rapaxapatrev od Thy adfPaav, &AKA 7d vououa. Suidas’ rendering is almost 
identical with this. See Gomperz, Greichische Denker, vol. II, p. 127. 

30 VI, II, 1. xai wuvPavduevov . . . tl ro:-hoas evdokoraros eora, oitw aBeiv 
TOV XpnTuorv ToUvTOV. 

31 VI, 188 A. 

% Philologus LX, p. 91, n. 17. 

3 Philologus LX, p. 90. 

mNT. St. 

% TV, 3, 16. Roscher thinks further that the phrase 7@ 6 véum reoréov in 
Plato’s Apol. 19A has reference to this saying. 


“RNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 5 


Finibus®*—“Quaeque sunt vetera praecepta sapientium, qui iubent 
tempori parere, et sequi deum, et se noscere et nihil nimis,” p 
though he needs to emend parere to parcere to make good his point.*” 
In their insistence upon the verse form of the inscriptions Goettling 
and Roscher are influenced, of course, by the fact that the Delphic 
oracles were given in hexameters, and by the presence of such dedica- 
tions elsewhere. There was an epigram on the Apollo temple at 
Delos, according to Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics**; and at Ephesus, 
apparently on the old temple of Artemis, were six words, known as 
’Evéota ypdupata, which may be arranged in a perfect hexameter 
verse.2® The seven sayings at Delphi Roscher thinks played a réle 
similar to that of the Mosaic Decalogue, and he renders them: 


“Komm und folge dem Gott und Gesetz und nutze die Zeit wohl! 
Prufe dich selbst, Halt Mass, und meide gefahrliche Burgschaft.”’ 


Roscher’s work is certainly ingenious, whether we are disposed to 
accept it, or to give our imagination less rein and affirm with Schultz 
and Lagercrantz that we have sure evidence for five inscriptions only. 


The original authorship of the sayings is an open question now 
as of old, for we cannot be sure whether they first appeared on the 
temple or whether they were put there after they had become familiar 
in current thought. Plato, as we have seen, attributes them to the 
Sevén Wise Men, but he can hardly have been serious in doing so, 
judging from the general tone of that section of the Protagoras. 
Plato is the first to tell this story of the meeting of the Seven Sages 
at Delphi, and it has been suggested that he was responsible for the 
establishment of the canon.*t But the canon was never firmly 
fixed. Pausanias* and Demetrius Phalereus* follow Plato in their 
lists, except for the substitution of Periander of Corinth for the 
less known Myson, but Clement of Alexandria mentions several 


* TIT, 22. 

37 Cf. Seneca, Ep. 94, 28. Roscher thinks, too, that a ait legibus may 
have fallen out between ¢empori and parere. 

38 Eth. Eudem. 1, 1. 

89 Cl. Alex. Sree: V, VIII, 45. See also Philologus LX, p. 89. 

40 Phil. LIX, 38. 

@ See p. 3, n. 23. 

SX, 24, 3. 

8 Stob. Flor. III; 79. It was Demetrius who first distributed the apoph- 
thegms among the Sages severally, according to Bohren, De Septem Sapientibus, 
Daa 


6 ““KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


substitutions for Periander,“ and no less than twenty-two names 
are accounted among the Seven by different authors.“ Diogenes 
Laertius attributes T'v&6. cavrév to Thales,“ Myéév &yay to Solon,*? 
and ’Eyyia, tapa 6’ arn to Chilon.*® Diodorus Siculus speaks of 
Chilon as having written all three.*® Plutarch says the Amphictyons 
wrote them on the temple.®° Some ancient writers held the theory, 
too, that they were not the words of the Sages, but the utterance 
of the priestess*'\—the view advocated by Roscher. The uncer- 
tainty attached to their authorship is well expressed by Porphyry, 
who sums up the situation with the words: ‘‘ Whether Phemonoe, 
through whom the Pythian God is said to have first distributed 
favors to men, uttered this (yv@6 cavrov) . . . or Phanothea, the 
priestess of Delphi, or whether it was a dedication of Bias or Thales 
or Chilon, started by some divine inspiration. . or whether it was 
before Chilon .., as Aristotle says in his work on Philosophy, who- 
soever it was. . let the question of its origin lie in dispute.” 

We are not only in doubt concerning the original authorship of 
the sayings, but we do not know how early they appeared at Delphi. 
They must have been on the temple built toward the end of the 6th, 
or early in the 5th, century to replace the old stone structure de- 
stroyed by fire in 548 B. C.,°* and it is possible, if not probable, that 
they were on the earlier temple of stone. Plutarch speaks of the 
existence in his day of an old “wooden E,” the ‘‘bronze E of the 
Athenians,” and the ‘“‘golden E of the itmpress Livia.”® If the 
bronze E was dedicated by the Athenians to adorn the new temple 
which the Alcmaeonidae made splendid with its front of Parian 
marble, it may be that the wooden E was rescued from the fire 
of 548 B. C. This new temple built by the Alcmaeonidae was de- 

“ Sirom. I, 14, 59. See also Diog. Laert. Proem. IX (13). 

* Hitzig’s Pausanias, vol. III, pt. 2, p. 749. 

“1, 9, -35. 

Oe ey etka: Coke Seite Ae 

mts; 0. 

49 TX, 10. 

50 De Garrul. 17. 

51 Cl. Alex. Strom. I, 14, 60 & Diog. Laert. I, 1, 13 (40). 

52 Stob. Flor. XXI, 26. 

53 Herodotus II, 180 & Paus. X, 5, 13. 

Schultz thinks from the statement by Porphyry that yv@@ cavrév at 
least was on the stone temple. 


55 De E apud Delphos, c. 3. 
66 Her. V, 62. Cf. Pindar, Pyth. VII. 


““ENOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 7 


stroyed and rebuilt in the 4th century, and the 4th century temple 
seems to have suffered partial destruction in 84/83 B. C., and again 
in Nero’s time.*’ Presumably the sayings were inscribed anew with 
each rebuilding, or if they were on tablets, as Goettling and Roscher 
think,®® the old ones may have been rescued on some of these occa- 
sions. Pliny tells us that the sayings were inscril ed in letters of 
gold**—an addition belonging to the Roman Period, doubtless, as 
Plutarch says of the golden £. 

The exact position of the inscriptions on the temple is variously 
given. The scholiast on Plato’s Phaedrus® says they were on the 
Propylaea. Macrobius in one passage® places them on the temple 
front, and in another® on the door-post. Pausanias, however, 
says they were on the pronaos,® and Diodorus in speaking of the 
three best known to us says they were on a certain column. The 
coin referred to above represents the temple as hexastyle, with the 
E in the central space, which may or may not be indicative of its 
position. Roscher thinks it may have been suspended between the 
two columns of the pronaos,® while the other inscriptions were 
written three each on two tablets in boustrophedon fashion and at- 
tached to either column. He also conceives the idea of the sayings 
being written on six tablets attached to the six columns of the temple 
front, with the £ on the left central and vi cavrév on the right 
central column; but the theory that they were on one or both of the 
pillars of the pronaos seems to us more plausible, especially in view 
of its support by the earlier of the ancient authorities. 

As regards the original meaning of these sayings, we have spoken of 
Roscher’s suggestion that they may have corresponded in a sense to 
the Mosaic Decalogue. Ina later article he developes the idea that, 
originating at Delphi, they all had to do with the temple service. 
The E would be the welcome and assurance of the God to the wor- 
shipper, and the Oe jpa would enjoin upon him to give the God 


57 Frazer on Paus. X, 19, 4. vol. V, p. 328 ff. 
58 Abhandlungen, p. 225. 
aN dhs VAL, Oe. 
60 229E. 
81 Somn. Scip. I, 9, 2. 
62 Sat. I, 6, 6. 
eX; 24, 1. 
TX, 10. Cf. Varro, Sat. Menip. p. 169, ed. Reise. 
6 Phil. LX, 96. 
8 Phil. LX, 98-100. 


8 ‘““KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


sacrifice and honor. Tv@@ cavrév, he says, was an exhortation to 
the worshipper to be clear about himself and what he wanted; the 
Mnéev ayay an exhortation to limit the excessive number of requests 
with which many seekers assailed the God; and Eyvyia, rapa 8’ arn, 
which taken independently later came to mean “Give a pledge 
(whether of bonds or in betrothal) without great caution, and trouble 
awaits you,’®’ meant originally “Bringe nur dem Gott dein Geliibde 
dar, aber bedenke dabei auch, dass du es erfiillen musst, wenn du 
nicht der Gdottlichen Strafe oder Rache verfallen willst.”” This 
theory of Roscher’s that the sayings originated at Delphi and had 
at first only a local application implies that the attributing of them 
to the Wise Men was a later tradition arising through their similarity 
in form to the general “Wisdom Literature’? or Proverbs of the 
Greeks. But the ancient theory that they appeared at Delphi 
only after they had become current proverbs is at least equally 
plausible. We have observed that Plato is the first to refer them 
to the Seven Sages,®* but in his time likewise do we find first mention 
of their presence on the Delphic temple. Yet they were current 
long before Plato, for Mnéev a&yav is quoted by Theognis®® and Pin- 
dar,®® and T'v&& cavrév by the tragic poet Ion,” and (with a dif- 
ferent form of the verb) by Heracleitus™ and Aeschylus.” 


67See Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Convivium c. 21 (164B) xail rodro 6% 7d roddods 
pev a&ydpous, wodAols 6’ dmicrous, ious 5¢ kai Agwvous remounkds eyyia Tapa 5’ arn. 

68 A fragment of Pindar (216 ed. Christ) reads: 

Logo bé kai rd pndey Gyav Eros alvnoay Tepioods. 

It is possible, of course, that in its context Zogoi referred to the Sages, but the 
absence of any qualifying word in the fragment and the fact that Pindar some- 
times used Zogoi of poets leaves the matter in doubt. 

69 335 & 657. 

70 Frag. 55. ed. Nauck. 

7 Frag. 116. Diels. 

72 Prom. 309. Two scholiasts on Homer see an allusion to yv@@& cavrév in 
Iliad I11:53. (Homeri Ilias Scholia vol. III ed. Dindorf & V ed. Maass): 


yvolns x’ olov pwrds Exets Oadephy mapaxorriv. 


In fact, one of them goes so far as to say: otk apa Xidwvos, ws brogaiverat, 
déyua 7d yr6. cavrov, 4X’ ‘Ounpov. Any such interpretation of the Iliad passage, 
however, is wide of the mark. The yvoiys has rather the idiomatic use of yeyraoKkw 
found not infrequently in Homer and elsewhere (cf. Plato Rep. 362A, 466C, 
569A) in expressing a sort of challenge or threat, ‘Then you’d find out.’ The 
scholiast misses this, and reads into Homer an idea which did not become current 
until a later day. This tendency on the part of late writers to refer the Delphic 
maxims to Homer appears also in Plutarch’s Sept. Sap. Convivium, c. 21 (164 B-C). 


““RNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 9 


Whatever their origin, these two sayings came to have an im- 
mense importance in Greek thought. ‘‘ Behold how many questions 
these inscriptions I'v cavrév and Mnéev aya have set afoot amongst 
the philosophers,” says Plutarch, “and what a multitude of discussions 
has sprung from each of them as from a seed.” And in another 
passage he compares them to streams confined in a narrow channel.” 
“One cannot see through their meaning,’ he adds, “but if you 
consider what has been written or said about them by those who 
wish to understand what each means, not easily will you find longer 
discussions than these.’’ Of such long and multitudinous discus- 
sions comparatively few have been left to us, although unédey a&yav 
and particularly yv@Oc cavrév are scattered all through our extant 
literature, and their mention is often accompanied by some reflec- 
tions upon their meaning. The longest surviving work which bears © 
directly upon the yv&6& cavrov is the Alcibiades I, ascribed to Plato, 
though conceded by many scholars to be of doubtful authenticity.” 
The Neo-Platonist commentators upon the dialogue have much 
to say about the maxim itself, and there are discussions of shorter 
length to be found elsewhere in Plato, in Xenophon, Dio Chrysostom, 
Epictetus, Cicero, Plutarch, Julian, and a great many other writers. 
But Aristotle’s fullest treatment of the apophthegm was apparently 





Kat 6 “Atowmos Stray ye waifn mpds eué Kepoias, elwe, crovdatwy 5é robtrwr “Ounpov 
edperiv arodeixvvor Kai gnot Tov wey “Exropa yryvmoxew éavtdv (See p. 26) 
tov 8’ ’Odvocéa Tod undev G&yav erawernv. .. . 


% EF apud Delphos c. 2. 


™ De Pythiae Oraculis 29. 7rd Tv@0e cavrov cal 7d Mndey dyav drodéxecbe . . . 
kal Ta Tovadra piv aroghéypata Tv cop&v taird tots eis crevdy avpOdA.Betor rérovOe 
pebpaow... Cf. Seneca Ep. Mor.94,28: “‘Praeterea ipsa quae praecipiuntur, per 
se multum habeant ponderis, utique si aut carmini intexta sunt aut prosa ora- 
tione in sententia coartata. . . . Qualia sunt illa aut reddita oraculo aut simi- 
lia: Tempori parce, Te nosce.”” The Ancients greatly admired the conciseness of 
expression—the Laconic brevity—of these maxims. See Plato’s Protagoras 
343B and Plutarch De Garrulitate 17— Oavpatovrar 6é kal r&v radady oi Bpaxvddyot, 
kai T@ iep@ rod IvOiov ’Aré\dwvos ob Thy Icdda Kai riv Odtcceaav, ov5é rods Tuvddpou 
mwalavas, éréypaway oi “Augixrioves, &\AG TO T'vGO cavrdv, kal rd Mnéev G&yav, Kal rd 
"Eyyia, mapa 6° ara. The Rhetorical writers used them as an illustration of a 
Koupa. See Demetrius (?) On Style 9: dpifovrar 5’ abrd de, xdupa éorl Td Kedov 
€\arrov olov . . . 7 yv@O. ceavrov Kal 76 érod 06 Ta T&v cogGv. Also Aristides Art 
of Rhetoric A’ 483 vol. II, p. 763, ed. Dindorf: xéupa 8’ éorl K@dov pépos Kab’ adrd 
bev TWEuEvorv, &s TO YO. cavTov, Kai undey &yav. 

% See Heidel, Pseudo-platonica pp. 61-72. 


10 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


in his lost work on Philosophy;” of Porphyry’s book entitled [vat 
Lavrov we have only extracts; and we likewise have extracts only 
from Varro’s satire under the same title.”® The Stoics wrote many 
treatises upon this apophthegm, in which they made it the sum and 
substance of philosophy,”® but none of these are extant, and the only 
complete ancient work which bears the title TEPI TOT ITNQOI 
ZATTON directly is Stobaeus’ collection of statements from various 
writers upon the subject.*° 

But while most of the longer discussions of yv&Ot cavrov have 
been lost, enough remains to show us how thoroughly the maxim 
permeated ancient literature and thought. Plato said it was on 
everybody’s tongue®* and writers of almost every class use it in one 
connection or another. Men failed to heed it in practice,® but they 
looked upon it as a divine command and held it in due reverence. 
Dio Chrysostom calls the sayings at Delphi ‘‘almost more divine 
than the oracles delivered by the inspired priestess’’;** and Cicero 
says that so great is the force of yv&@ cavrév that it is attributed 
not to some man but to the Delphic god. The ‘‘E caelo descendit 
vai. ceavtov”’ of Juvenal® may be regarded as a succinct expression 
of ancient feeling regarding the maxim. 

An expression which seemed sent of Heaven, through whosever 
lips it first came, and which was so frequently upon the tongue and 
pen of the Greeks and their Roman admirers, must have been fraught 


% Stob. Flor. 21; 26; cf. Plutarch Ad. Colot. 20. ’Apiororédns & tots Tdarwrixots 

., and Clem. of Alex. Strom. I, 14, 60. 

77 Stob. Flor. 21:26-28. 

78 Sat. Menip. pp. 144-147, ed. Reise. 

79 Julian Or. VI, 185D. 

80 Flor. 21. 

81 Supra p. 1. cf. Hipparchus 228E, where it is said that Hipparchus set up 
Herms in every deme bearing epigrams of his own composing that the people 
might not marvel at the wise inscriptions at Delphi. 

8 See Epictetus III, 1. 18. da ri 5& wpoyéypamrra 7d yrOO. cavrdv oo 
abré voodyros; Plautus’ Pseudolus, 972-3: 

“‘Pauci istuc faciunt homines quod tu praedicas; 
Nam in foro vix decumus quisque est qui ipsus sese noverit.”’ 
Ausonius De Herediolo 19-20: 
“‘Quamquam difficile est se noscere; yee oeauTov 
quam prope legimus, tam cito neclegimus.”’ 

8 Or. LX XII, 386R os 7 Svre 54 Oeia Tradra Kal oxeddv TL TaV XpNTMaV AE 
ovs 4 Iv0ia éxpa. ‘ 

* De Legibus I, 22. See p. 69. 

& XT, 27. 


‘NOW THYSELF’”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 11 


with a meaning capable of varied applications, and it is the various 
shades of meaning which yv@& cavrdv conveyed with which this 
study is chiefly concerned. Apparently its earlier and ordinary 
forces were comparatively simple, but as time went on and literary 
discussions multiplied, the maxim came to take on many ideas 
which were not connected with it when it first gained potency. These 
later uses did not drive out the earlier, but simply served as accre- 
tions, arising from the growth of ethical, philosophical, and meta- 
physical thought. They began to gather as early as Plato’s time, 
and it is probable that to him and his Master, Socrates, we owe 
much of the emphasis upon certain phases of the interpretation of 
the apophthegm. Yet just how much originated with them we 
can only infer, as the saying occurs but rarely in the earlier literature. 

In point of language, the presence of the maxim is regularly indi- 
cated by some form of the verb yyrwoxw with a reflexive, but it 
sometimes happens, particularly among later writers, that oféa is 
used with the same purport. In fact, ofa and yeyywoxw both occur 
with this connotation within the same sentence in at least two 
_instances.* The negative is regularly dyvoew. Occasionally yrwpifw 
with a reflexive is suggestive of the maxim.*’ Philo Judaeus some- 
times uses verbs of remembering and forgetting to introduce ideas 
familiarly expressed with yiyywoxw and dyvoéw, but this is not usual 
among Greek writers.*8 The corresponding Latin phrase for ya 
aavurov is Nosce te, but cognosco is used very frequently instead of 
the simple verb, and agnosco now and then suggests the apophthegm. 
Scio®® and intellego®® are rarely found in this connection, but they 
do occur. 


86 Aristotle, Magna Moralia II, 1213a, 15; Philostratus, A poll. of Ty. III, 18. 

87 Fud. Ethics VIII 1245a 36-37; Magna Mor. II, 1213a; Porphyry De Absti- 
nentia: ‘‘Man, in need of all things,” he says, etxe: re TG Ovnt@ THs yloews abrod 
éws Tov SvTws EavTov odk éyvwpicev. The words from éws on wil] scan as an iambic 
trimeter, which accounts for the line being listed as a Comic Frag. of unknown 
origin (vol. III, no. 246, ed. Koch). 

88 The phrase uy AavOavev abrdv adrov in Plato’s Philebus 19C may also suggest 
the maxim. See Shorey’s rendering in A. J. P. XIII, 372. Cf. Plutarch, Quo 
Modo Adolescens Poet. aud. deb. c. 11; also Proclus on Alc. I, p. 229 ed. Creuzer: 
tay dé Kad’ Exacrov pnudrwv To wey Eavrdv AZAnPas oixelév éotl TH EavTdv ayvoovyTt. 

%® Origen, In Cant. Cant. II, 56. 

See p. 44, n. 30. 


CHAPTER II 
TNQOI TATTON As Know Your MEASURE 


The earliest apparent reference to yv&& cavrdv is found in a 

fragment attributed to Heracleitus:! 
avOpwrolor WHOL METETTL YLVwoKELY EwuTOUs Kal TwypoveElV. 

But this is only a fragment, and without the context the meaning 
which the words are intended to convey cannot be determined direct- 
ly. The fragment of Ion, to which we have also alluded, tells us 
merely that yv@& cavrov is difficult. Aeschylus, however, who is 
the only other author to use the phrase directly before Plato’s time, 
brings it into his Prometheus, where its meaning is unmistakable. 
The self-will of Prometheus—his defiant pride—has brought him 
to his doom and nailed him to a beetling crag on the desolate edge 
of the world. Justified in his own eyes for his service to man, he 
can see in Zeus’ treatment of him only ingratitude for his help in 
gaining the throne and an arbitrary use of power, and his Titan 
heart knows no flinching. But Oceanus at length comes to beseech ~ 
him to conciliate Zeus, and says in the course of his pleadings? 


vyiyvwoKe cavTov Kal ueOdpyooat Tpd7rovs 

veovs’ veds yap Kai Tipavvos év Beois. 
Obviously Oceanus’ plea is that Prometheus may humble his pride 
and adopt manners becoming a subject god. To know himself* 
is to know his place as subject of the new king, to recognize his limi- 
tations in his inability to defy Zeus save to his own hurt.* And 
these meanings of yv&6 cavrév, together with the more general idea 


1Stob. Flor. V, 119. Bywater (Heracleiti Ephesii Reliquiae, CVI,) questions 
the authenticity of this, but Diels (frag. 116) treats it as genuine. Diels substi- 
tutes gpoveiv for the MSS. reading sw¢ypoveiv, though he gives no reason for doing so. 
2 Prom. 309-310. 


’ Harry (Prometheus p. 184) renders the verb “learn to know thyself (en- 
deavor)” as distinguished from the aorist yv@@ ‘‘come to a knowledge of thy- 
self (attainment),” and says that the pres. imp. is not as abrupt and urgent as 
the aorist. This may be true, but very likely the requirements of the meter 
would more naturally account for the shift in tense. 


‘Similar to this in spirit are the words of Odysseus in Euripides’ Hecuba 
(vv. 226-228) when he announces Polyxena’s doom: 
unt’ eis xep@v Gurdrav ekEhOgs Euoi 
vyiyvwoke 5’ &dxhv kal mapovolay KaxGv 
T&v cv, copov Tor Kav Kaxots & Set gpoveiv. 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 13 


of knowing the measure of one’s capacity, were undoubtedly the 
usual connotations of the maxim, as we shall see from our further 
study. 

If these were the early forces of the apophthegm, we may venture 
to construe the fragment of Heracleitus quoted above somewhat 
in this way: “It is the part of all men to know their limitations and 
be sober.” Another of Heracleitus’ fragments has been thought 
to be connected with the well-known saying—the phrase édufnodunv 
éuewuTov.. Plutarch in his refutation of Colotes’ attack upon Soc- 
rates, says with regard to Socrates’ seeking to know what man is:’ 
6 6’ ‘HpakXeiros, as peya Te Kal ceuvov Siaterparypevos edifnoaunv, enor, 
éuewuTov, Kal Tav év AedXgots ypaupatwv Oedrarov eddxer TO Tv@O. cavrov. 
And Julian connects the two in like manner:3 otxody 6 pév (ev) Aedgots 
feds TO yv@0t cavrov mpoayopeter, ‘Hpaxdetros b€ ebifnodyny euewvror. 
Burnet says in his Greek Philosophy:® ‘The Delphic precept ‘Know 
Thyself’ was a household word in those days and Herakleitus says 
‘I sought myself.’ He also said (fr. 71) ‘You cannot find out the 
boundaries of soul: so deep a measure hath it.’° Whether Her- 
acleitus really used the word difnua with the idea of soul-searching 
attributed to him by men of a later day, we cannot tell surely from 
such a mere fragment, though we know that he was a great thinker 
along ethical lines as well as along the lines of natural philosophy'— 
“a thinker of that class to whom nothing thoughtful can be strange.’ 
But however much of self-examination the words éifnodunv éuewvtdv 
may imply, there is no indication that in using them Heracleitus him- 
self had yv&6 cavrév in mind. Rather we would like to believe 
that he used the maxim as we have indicated above, and expressed 
the idea of a deeper inner knowledge of self in other ways—with 
words like difnua. 


®It is possible that owgpovely may be synonymous here with yuwaoxew 
éwuro’s in its meaning of ‘Know your place.’ See pp. 33 ff. 


6 Diels, frag. 101. 
7 Ad. Colot. c. 20. 
® Or. VI, 185A. 

® Pt. I, p. 59. 

10 See p. 82. 


1 See Diogenes Laert. IX, 1. 4. Téyove 5& Oavpdous é ratdwy, bre Kal véos dv 
égacke pnder eldevar’ rédevos pévtor yevopevos, TavTa eyvaxévar, Hrovoe Te obSevds, GAN’ 
avbrov gyn SifnoacOa. . . . Cf. Stob. Flor. 21:7. 


Benn, Greek Philosophers, p. 19. 


14 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


If yvG& cavroy ordinarily suggested knowing one’s measure or 
limits, we may agree with the scholiast in seeing an indirect allusion 
to it in Pindar’s Pythian II, 34. He is speaking of Ixion’s falling 
into presumptuous sin in attempting to pollute the couch of Hera, 
and he adds: 

xpH b€ Kat’ abrov aiel ravTds 6pay meéTpov. 

Jebb says: “this passage has been taken to imply the Pythagorean 
doctrine of a relative ethical mean’; Taylor in his Ancient Ideals" 
renders it, ““Take measure of Thyself’? and connects it with pndev 
&yav; while Gildersleeve” calls it, ‘only another form of the homely 
advice of Pittacus to one about to wed above his rank—rap xara cavrov 
éa.”’ Gildersleeve translates it, however, ‘‘To measure everything 
by one’s self, i.e., to take one’s own measure in every plan of life’’; 
and this meaning ‘‘to take one’s measure”’ the scholiast of old recog- 
nized as the common interpretation of the Delphic yr cavrév. 
“Tt is fitting,” says the scholiast’® on the passage, ‘‘to consider the 
measure of things according to one’s power and to desire these, and 
not strive for those beyond our power. This is like the inscription 
by Chilon at Delphi.”” The word ypérpov may suggest the doctrine 
of the Mean, it is true, and the context of the passage happens to 
fit well with the Pittacus saying; but if, as seems probable, the idea 
of taking one’s own measure was to the Greek an instant reminder of 
yvG0. cavrov, it seems natural to so construe it here.!’ 


By way of evidence that yv&@& cavroy in its ordinary acceptance 
meant ‘know your own measure,’ we have an interesting passage 
in Xenophon’s Hellenica,® where Thrasybulus makes it the text 
of his address to the City party after the victory of the patriots 


18 Essays and Addresses, p. 55, & ft. note. 

4 Vol. I, page 202 & note. 

' Olympian and Pythian Odes, p. 260. He compares with this Pindar 
passage Aeschylus’ Prom. 892: ws 76 knécioa kab’ éavrdv dpioreber paxpG—which, 
as Seymour (Select Odes of Pindar, p. 145) reminds us, the Scholiast on Aeschylus 
says is ‘“‘a development of the saying of Pittacus.”’ 

% Vol. II, p. 42. ed. Drachman. rév xara ri éavtod Sivayw 7d pérpor oKoTely 
xal TolTwr érupetv, kai ph T&v brép Sbvapv dpeyeoOar. Suoroyv é TovTO TG bd XidAwvos 
& Aedgois ’eyypagerte [yvG0e cavrér]. 

17 The phrase in this same ode v. 72—vyévou’ ofos éooi wafew taken apart from 
its context, might seem to refer to yv&6 cavrév also, but as Gildersleeve (p. 264) 
shows, the wale is not a part of the command, and the sentence means “Show 
thyself who thou art, for I have taught it thee.” 

18 TT, IV, 40-41. 


‘““kNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 15 


over the Thirty at Eleusis. Upon the conclusion of the terms 
of peace and the disbanding of Pausanias’ army, the patriots had 
marched up to the Acropolis and offered sacrifice to Athena; and 
when they came down, the generals called a meeting of the Ecclesia. 
Thrasybulus then made an address beginning with the words: 
duty, @ Ek TOU GoTews Gvdpes, ouuBovrtebw eya yvdvar buds adrobs. 
“And you might know yourselves best,’’ he goes on to say, ‘‘if you 
would take account of the qualities upon which you ought to pride 
yourselves in attempting to rule over us. Are you more just? The 
people, though poorer than you, have never wronged you for the sake 
of money, while you, who are richer than all, have done many dis- 
graceful deeds for the sake of gain. . . . Consider whether it is 
for your courage forsooth that you ought to feel pride. What 
fairer test of this than the way in which we have carried on the war 
against each other? Could you claim to be superior in intelligence— 
you who with a fortification, and arms, and money, and Pelopen- 
nesian allies have been worsted by men who.had none of these 
things?”’ This quotation is sufficient, perhaps, to show the sense 
in which Thrasybulus used the maxim, and it is significant not only 
because the apophthegm formed the basis of a speech before the 
Assembly on so momentous an occasion, but also because it dem- 
onstrates the interpretation put upon yv&@ cavrdv by ordinary men 
of affairs. Thrasybulus would have the City party measure them- 
selves carefully in comparison with the patriots, and recognize the 
limits of their own moral qualities and power to achieve. 


Xenophon discusses our apophthegm in his Cyropaedia’® in the 
story of a conversation between Croesus and Cyrus after the capture 
of Sardis. ‘Tell me, Croesus,” said Cyrus, “how have your responses 
from Delphi turned out? For it is said that Apollo has received 
much service from you and you do everything in obedience to him.’’2° 
Croesus gave a brief account of his relations with the Oracle and 
told of how after one of his sons was born dumb and the other was 
killed," he sent in his affliction to ask the God in what way he could 


#9 VII, II, 20-25. Cf. Herodotus I, 28-91. The similarity between many 
features of this story of Xenophon’s and the account in Herodotus is striking, 
but the connection with yv&& cavrév is Xenophon’s addition. 

70 Cf. Her. I, 46-51, esp. 51, where he tells us that Croesus sent rich gifts 
to Delphi. 

1 Cf. Her. I, 34 ff. 


16 ““KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


spend the rest of his life most happily.” Zavrdv yiryvwokwy ebdaiuwr, 
Kpotce, repaces, the god replied. Croesus thought that the easiest 
thing in the world, he said, for while in the case of other people it 
is possible to know some and others not, he thought every one knew 
with regard to himself both who and what he is. But after several 
years of peace, spoiled by his wealth and by flatterers, and by those 
who begged him to become their leader, he accepted the command 
of the army, supposing he was capable of becoming very great™— 
“not knowing himself, forsooth.”” For he thought he was able to 
carry on war against Cyrus, a man descended from the gods, of 
kingly race, and practised in courage from a child,™ while the first 
of his own ancestors to be king was a freedman. ‘But now surely, 
O Cyrus,” he says, “yeyveackw wer, éuavrov, and do you think that 
Apollo spoke the truth in saying that in knowing myself I shall be 
happy?” Cyrus promised to restore to him his wife and family, bid- 
ding him refrain from wars thereafter, and Croesus was content. In 
this story, which we have necessarily condensed, we see again the | 
yvai. cavrév interpreted as ‘know your own measure,” for Croesus 
admits that he thought himself more capable than he was until 
experience in matching himself against Cyrus brought him to a 
better self-realization. 

In Plato’s Philebus*" we arrive at this meaning of yrabt cavrdv 
through a characterization of the man who does not know himself. 
Socrates and Protarchus are discussing mixed pleasures—pleasures 
mixed with pain when both are mental—and Socrates says that we 
experience these mixed feelings when viewing Comedy. The real 
nature of the comic is at bottom a kind of evil, he says—specifically 
that evil which is experiencing the opposite of what is said in the 
inscription at Delphi. “‘Do you mean yv&M& cavrov?” Protarchus 
asks, and Socrates replies: “I do, and cleayly the opposite of that 
would be not to know oneself at all.” Kates then goes on to 
define ignorance of self as an over-estimate of one of three things— 


2 Herodotus (I, 30 ff.) tells how Croesus tried to make Solon say he was the 
happiest of men. 

% Sec. 24. The Oracle told Croesus that if he should make war on the Per- 
sians he would destroy a mighty empire, but that empire proved to be his own. 
Her. I, 53 and 86. 

4 Cf. Alc. I, 121D-122A. 

% Sec. 25. : 

6 See L. Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen II, p. 395. 

27 A8C ff. 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 17 


our wealth, our personal appearance, or our character.22 The man 
who does not know himsef will fancy that he is richer than his actual 
amount of property warrants, or he wil! think himself taller and bet- 
ter looking than he is, or will think himself better than he is in point 
of virtue. And of virtues in general, wisdom is the one that most men 
have a false conceit about. The man who thus has an exalted opinion 
of himself, if he be powerful and able to avenge any ridicule, will 
be an object of fear; but if he is weak and harmless, he becomes an 
object of laughter and despite. } We find pleasure in our laughter, 
yet in our feeling of despite there is a certain pain. The question 
as to whether Plato is fair?® to Comedy here in taking as an instance 
but one type of comic character need not concern us, for we are 
interested only in the interpretation of yv&% cavrov , By showing 
what the opposite wou'd be, the passage defines it for us indirectly, 
for if the man who does not know h'mself has a false conceit of his 
possessions, his outward personality, his character and his wisdom, 
it follows that he who does know himself does not over-estimate 
his wealth, his appearance, his virtue, or his knowledge, In other 
words, he knows his own measure both in external goods and in in- 
ternal qualities, 

The above passage from the Philebus is only one of many in which 
the phrase dyvoetv éavrov is suggestive of the maxim, for it is the 
usual way of expressing a failure to meet the behest. And it is 
through this negative form that we are reminded indirectly of yva6u 
gavrévy in Aristotle’s description of the High-minded man. This 
High-minded man (yeyaddy~uxos) he regards as a mean between the 
Little-minded man (yxpdyvxos) on the one hand and the Conceited 
man (xadvos) on the other, and he describes the Little-minded man as 
- EoLKeV KaKOV ExeLV TL EK TOD pu} GkLvovY EavTov THY ayabdy Kal dyvoety bé éavTov,*° 

8 Tsocrates refers to this tripartite division in his Amtidosis 240. Porphyry 
(Stob. Flor. 21:28) speaks of the tripartite division of ignorance of self in the 
Philebus, and goes on to say: 4 ob ray ye 7d Ovnrdv Gvtixpus. . . 

ws Ste Tis Pauabov rats &yxt Oaddcons, 

bo7’ éxel ody Tornon GDbpyata vnrienow, 

ap aifis auvexeve wooly kal xepoly dbipow (Il. XV, 362-364) 
was obv ayvoig éavtod Ta Kab’ adrov éraipwy adioxerar brép Tis Snuwoupynodons abrov 
gicews wheiov H exelvn BeBobdAnTa, TA adbris ws ceuva Oavudtwv waiyyua . . . TO 
vb. oby cavrov Sine els wacay brdd\n~w Tijs Tpocobons Suvdpews, mapayyéddov 
yryvooKkew Ta péTpa eri TayTwY. .. . 

#9 Jowett in a footnote to his Introduction to the Philebus, p. 545, maintains 


that he is not. ; 
80 Nic. Ethics IV. 9. 1125, a.21. 


18 “KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 
y while he characterizes the xatdvo. as ndiPor Kai éavtods avyvoovvtes.*1 
_ The High-minded man, he tells us, is a man worthy of great things, 
who with a true estimate of himself lays claim to greatness.” The 
Little-minded man has great qualities likewise, but he does not think 
he has, and in that he does not appreciate his own worth and act 
\ upon it, he knows not himself in that sense. On the other hand, 
_ the man who lays claim to honors which belong to greatness without 
possessing the requisite qualities is a fool and likewise lacking in 
\ self-knowledge. The High-minded man, then, in that he is a mean 
“between the man who under-estimates and the man who over-esti- 
mates himself, both of whom fail to fulfill the God’s command, must 
be the very embodiment of the maxim, since he has a perfect estimate 

of his own high worth. 


The two historical characters most conspicuous in ancient litera- 
ture for their failure to know themselves were Alcibiades and Alex- 
ander. In the Alcibiades I, which is, as we have indicated, a veri- 
table treatise upon I'v@ Lavrov, Alcibiades is represented as a young 
man, not yet twenty years old,®* about to come forward in public 
life, and Socrates, whose alleged purpose is to bring him to a know- 
ledge of himself, reminds him of his great ambitions and his lack of 

_ preparation to carry them out. He shows him that he really knows 
nothing about politics, for he does not know the nature of justice 
and injustice, either from investigating them himself or from any 
teacher; and if he thinks he is no worse than other Athenian states- 
men, Socrates suggests that he measure himself with the Spartan 
and Persian kings, whose superiority in point of descent, early educa- 
tion, and wealth, he sets forth at length. Then he appeals to Alci- 
biades with the words:* ’AAN’, & paxapie, weOduevos Euol Te Kal TO ev 
Aedgots ypadupati, yv@c cavrov, Sti otro. huiv elow dyrimador, aN’ obxX 
os ot ole. To the further discussion of the maxim in this Dialogue 
we shall return later, but it is interesting to observe that in this 
first occurrence it has its ordinary force—‘know your own limits’— 
‘know your measure.’ 


311125 a.28. 

32 1123b. 1-2. In his Rhetoric Aristotle uses peyaddyvxos in a somewhat 
narrower sense. He applies it to the young and defines it as 76 dfvoty adrov 
peyadwv, irrespective of the justice of the claim. He also speaks of the Old as 
uixpoyuxor because they have been humbled (rerarew&oGa) by life. (II, 13, 5). 

#123 D: 

3124 A-B. 


“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 19 


Alexander the Great, who like Alcibiades had vast ambitions, 
was reminded of his failure to obey the Delphic precept by Dio- 
genes the Cynic, according to a story told by Dio Chrysostom. 
While at Corinth, Alexander went to visit the Philosopher, and after 
he had recovered from his surprise at being asked to stand a little 
to one side that he might not shade Diogenes from the sun,® he at 
length asked Diogenes how one could be the best kind of a king?’ 
and from whom he could learn the art. Diogenes replied that he 
should learn the art from Zeus and the Zeus-nourished kings of 
Homer (dtorpeve?s Baordéas).*® A King like Xerxes, when he drove his 
hordes into Greece, he said, acted as a cook, driving them to be 
butchered.*® ‘Does not even the Great King seem to you to be a 
king?” asked Alexander. ‘‘No more than my little finger,” replied 
Diogenes. ‘‘Then will I not be a great king if I overthrow him?” 
Alexander asked further. Diogenes answered that he would no more 
be a real king than if he were made so by children in a game,*® and 
Alexander was vexed, because he did not care to live if he could not 
be king of Europe and Asia and Lybia and the islands of the sea 

. “1 “Vou seem to be jesting,” hesaid. “If I take Darius and the 
king of India besides, nothing will hinder my being the greatest 
king who ever existed. For what is there left for me to conquer, 
after subduing Babylon and Susa and Ecbatana and gaining con- 
trol of affairs in India?” And Diogenes, seeing him aflame with 
ambition, said—“ You will not be a king the more as a result of this 
purpose, not even if you leap over the wall of Babylon and so take 
the city . . . nor if you take a continent greater than Asia by 
swimming through the ocean.”” “‘And what further enemy is left 
me?” said Alexander, “after I take these whom I have mentioned?” 
“The hardest to fight of all,” replied Diogenes, ‘‘not a Persian, 
nor a Lydian in speech, as I suppose Darius is, but a Macedonian 
and a Greek.’”’ And Alexander was confused and contended that 
he did not know any one in Macedonia or in Greece prepared to 
make war, and he asked who this enemy’in Greece or Macedonia 


% Or. IV. 
% 147 R. 
37150 R. 
38155 R. 
89 156 R. 
40156 R-157 R. 
1158 R. 


20 “KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


might be. “You are your own worst enemy,” ... Diogenes 
answered,” “and this is the man of whom you are ignorant as of 
none other. For no uncontrolled and wicked man understands 
himself, else Apollo would not have enjoined this first of all as the 
hardest thing for each of us, yr@vai éavrov. Or do you not consider 
agpocivn® the greatest and most deadly of all diseases . . .?” 
“You will have the truth from me alone,” Diogenes says a little 
farther on, ‘‘and from no one else could you learn it.” Alexander 
was evidently making the mistake of estimating himself by his posi- 
tion and military achievements rather than by his real qualities of 
character, and the Cynic would have him know the measure of his 
Teal self. 

Diogenes gives the maxim much the same force in Dio Chrysostom’s 
short dialogue on Reputation.* The question is raised as to 
how the philosopher seems to differ from the rest of mankind, and 
the gist of Diogenes’ argument is that the philosopher brings every- 
thing to the test of truth, while others are guided by what men say 
of them. “Would a man be of any account,” Diogenes asks, “if 
he measures himself by this rule and standard?’’, and his interlocutor 
replies that he certainly would not. Then the dialogue continues: 
Ajrov yap bri obdérote yvoin ay EéauvTov ottw cKxomav—Oi’ yap av yvoin— 
“Qote ovk av eri TeiBorro TSG AedXgukG wpoophjyate KeNevoayte TavTds paddov 
yeyvwokey airov. The effect of flattery in making a man “think more 
highly of himself than he ought to think” is a common theme in 
ancient literature and is associated with yv@&: cavroy on more sides 
than one. It was implied in the words of Diogenes to Alexander to 
the effect that Alexander would learn the truth from him alone, and 
we remember that Croesus frankly admitted that he grew to over- 
estimate his powers partly because he was spoiled by flatterers.“ So 
Seneca, in speaking of the subject, says that men in position who 
listen to flattery do not know their own strength, but while they 
believe that they are as great as they hear themselves called, they 
draw on unnecessary and hazardous wars.“ Plato saw in this in- 


2 160 R. 

“ For the significance of the word dgpoctvn here, compare Chap. IV, page 
38. It is evidently the opposite of cwypoctvy in its general sense. 

“Or. LXVII, 361 R. 

* Cf. Zeno (Stob. Flor. 14, 4) "EXeyxe cavrév boris ef, ut) mpds xdpw &xov’, 


a&gaipov 6 Kohaxwy rappyoiar. 


De Beneficiis VI. 30, 5. “See p. 24, n. 8. 


““ENOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 21 


sidious evil a chief reason why his dream of an ideal king must 
ever fall short of fulfillment, and its prevalence is undoubtedly re- 
sponsible in part for the fact that yv@6 cavrdy is hard. 


When we come to Latin authors we meet an apparent allusion 
to the maxim in this sense of “knowing one’s measure” in Plautus’ 
Stichus, where in answer to the question 


“Quae tibi mulier videtur multo sapientissima?” 
one of the characters replies: 


“Quae tamen, quom res secundae sunt, se poterit gnoscere, 
Et illa quae aequo animo patietur sibi esse peius quam fuit.’47 


The maxim occurs again with this force in one of Cicero’s Phil- 
lipics.*8 He is inveighing against the audacity of Antony in occupy- 
ing Pompey’s house, and he says: “An tu, illa in vestibulo rostra 
(spolia) cum adspexisti, domum tuam te introire putas? Fieri 
non potest. Quamvis enim sine mente sine sensu sis, ut es, tamen 
et te et tua et tuos nosti.”” In saying “you know yourself and your 
property and your household,” Cicero implies that Antony must 
realize that he is not Pompey’s equal, and to that extent, of course, 
he knows or measures himself aright. 


But the best instance in Latin literature of the use of yr cavrov 
with its original force occurs in the satire of Juvenal*® to which we 
have already alluded. The satire contains an invitation to a simple 
dinner, and it begins with a picture of an Epicure who lives beyond 
his means. In a man like Rutilius a sumptuous table is an extrava- 
gance, though in the case of Ventidius it is praiseworthy because 
of his wealth; and the Poet continues: 


**Tllum ego iure 
Despiciam, qui scit quanto sublimior Atlas 
Omnibus in Libya sit montibus, hic tamen idem 
Ignoret, quantum ferrata distet ab arca 
Sacculus. E caelo descendit yv&4 ceavrér, 
Figendum et memori tractandum pectore, sive 
Conjugium quaeras vel sacri in parte senatus 
a ea deer ae 
see te ae Seu tu magno discrimine causam 
Protegere adfectas, te consule, dic tibi qui sis, 
Orator vehemens, an Curtius et Matho buccae. 


47 vy. 124-125. 
IT, 28. 
ng, S Ba iF 


22 ““ENOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


Noscenda est mensura sui spectandaque rebus 


In summis minimisque;**etiam-eum_piscis émetur, ‘ 
Ne mullum cupias, quem sit tibi gobio tantum 
In loculis.”’ 


This extract from Juvenal illustrates so clearly the use of yr cavrév 
which we have been trying to emphasize that further comment 
upon the passage is superfluous.” 

Stobaeus’ compilation of statements from various authors on 
the subject of yv&6: covréy contains much valuable materia] in itself, 
but the very position of the chapter in his Florilegium is also signi- 
ficant. The book consists of quotations touching various virtues 
and vices, each chapter on some virtue being followed by one on 
its corresponding vice. It is accordingly noteworthy that the chapter 
on the vice corresponding to IIEPI TOT TNQOI ZATTON*® is entitled 
IIEPI TIMEPOWIA>. Thus did the earlier and really dominant 
force of the maxim persist until the sixth century A. D. amid all 
_ the added conceptions which the growth of the centuries brought. 
Side by side with this general meaning of “knowing one’s measure 
or limits,’ there went the more specific ideas of ‘knowing what one 
can and cannot do,’ and ‘knowing one’s place,’ They belong very 
closely to the general thought, however, and we distinguish them 
only according to the apparent emphasis in given instances and as a 
matter of convenience for our study. 


50 Cf. Horace, Ep. I, 7, 98: ‘‘ Metiri se quemque suo modulo ac pede verum 
est.”” Also Lucan’s Pharsalia VIII, 527: “Metiri sua regna decet viresque 
fateri.”’ 

5! Henry Parks Wright says in his edition of Juvenal p. 138; ‘‘ Juvenal extends 
it (yr cavrdv) beyond the Nosce animum tuum of Cicero, Tusc. Dis. I. 52 and 
makes it include the measure of one’s abilities and resources.” It is evident 
that the ordinary Greek usage has escaped him. 

52 Stob. Flor. 21. 

%c¢.22. Extract no. 4 of this chapter is taken from Philemon and reads: 

TO yv@ht cavrdv ob warn eb tcf’ Sri 
TO phua TovTo SdEéav & Aedgorts Exe. 


| CHAPTER III 
TNQOI SATTON As Know Wuat You CAN AnD CANNOT Do 


There is a rather long discussion of yv@@& cavrév in the fourth 
book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and while the passage contains 
more than one idea connected with the maxim, the dominant force 
there given it is a knowledge of what one can and cannot do. Socrates 
is talking with Euthydemus, a representative of the class of people 
who think they have acquired the best education and pride them- 
selves on their wisdom.” Euthydemus admits that he is aspiring 
to become a statesman,’ as did the young Alcibiades under somewhat 
similar circumstances,’ and Socrates brings him by a series of ques- 
tions to the point where he is dismayed at his inability to answer. 
Then Socrates asks him: “Tell me, Euthydemus, have you ever 
been to Delphi?” ‘Yes, twice,”’ said he. ‘Did you notice, then, 
an inscription somewhere on the temple—the yv@& cavrov?”’ ‘ Yes.” 
“Did you pay no attention to the inscription, or did you heed it and 
try to consider what you were?” ‘‘No indeed,” said he, “for I 
surely thought I knew that at least, I would scarcely know anything 
at all, if I actually did not know myself.”* ‘‘Does a man seem to 
you to know himself who knows his name only?” asks Socrates, 
and he goes on to bring out the thought that just as in buying a 
horse men seek to learn its disposition and strength, so we should 
know our own ably ot ev yap elddres Eavtods, he says, ra Te émiTndera 
éavtois toact Kal draylyvwoKovow & Te SbvavTa kal & wy. ‘‘ And in doing 
what they understand,” he continues, ‘“‘they procure what they need 
and are successful, while by refraining from what they do not under- 
stand, they are without fault and avoid faring ill. . . . But those 
who do not know themselves, and are deceived about their own 
ability, are in like case with regard to other men and other human 
affairs; they do not know what they need nor what they are doing 
nor what they are using, but, mistaken in all these things, they miss 


He. ti. 
2 Sec. 1. 
3 Sec. 11. 


“Socrates’ method of proceedure in dealing with the youth is quite similar 
also. 


6 = 8 Sec. 24. 
6 See. p. 78. 


24 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


the good and fall upon evil.’ . . . You see this, too, in the case of 
states—that those which go to war with a stronger power, ignorant 
of their own inability, are laid waste or lose their freedom.’’ 
Euthydemus at length admits that knowing oneself should be made 
a matter of great importance, and asks how one ought to begin the 
self-examination. Socrates does not reply directly, but by a series 
of further questions about Good and Evil and about Democracy, 
he leads Euthydemus to recognize still more his own ignorance and 
sends him away crest-fallen. 


This idea of knowing the extent of one’s ability seems to be the 
leading thought in Aristotle’s treatment of yv&6c cavrév in his Rhet- 
oric® in the course of his discussion of the use of maxims in Oratory. 
The passage has presented some difficulties in translation, to judge 
from the obscurity of most English renderings, but the ‘general 
meaning becomes clear if we interpret “‘knowing oneself’’ correctly. 
“Maxims may be cited too,” Aristotle says, “‘in contradiction of 
sayings that have become public property, (by public property I 
mean, for instance, the yv@@ cavrév and the unéev &yav) whenever 
. . . they are uttered under stress of emotion. It would be a case 
of the emotional use, for example, eZ ris dpyufduevos pain Pebbos elvar ws det 
yiyveckery adtov’ otros your ei &yiyvwoKev éavTov, obx &y ToTE oTpPAaTNYELV 
néiwoev. Cope is probably right in understanding the odros to be 
“some imaginary person,’’ and in taking the words of the sentence 


7 Sec. 26-27. Cf. Plato’s Charmides 164 A-C. 

8 Observe in this connection the use of the Greek word yvwowuaxety for 
knowing the weakness of one’s fighting power in comparison with that of the 
enemy. Her. ITI, 25: ei pév vw pabdy radra 6 KayuBions éyvwoiaxee, xai amfye 
ériow Tov otpardv, eri TH apxnle yerouern auaprads, qv av avnip cogés. 

Euripides Heracl. 706-707: 

XpPIv yrwotpaxety onv HArkiay 

Ta 5’ dunxav’ éav. 
See also Her. VII. 130; VIII, 29; Isoc. ad. Phil. 83D; Paus. IX, VII, 4. Cf. 
Seneca, De Beneficiis VI, 30, 5: “Ignoravere vires suas et dum se tam magnos 
quam audiunt, credunt adtraxere supervacua et in discrimen rerum omnium 
perventura bella. The Auctor ad Herrenium IV, 9 (13): “Hi cum se et suas opes 
et copiam necessario norunt, tum vero nihilo minus propter propinquiiatem et 
omnium rerum societatem quid omnibus rebus populus Romanus posset, scire 
et existimare poterant.” Florus, II, 17, 3-4, pp. 190-191 ed. Lemaire: “Hispaniae 
numquam animus fuit adversus nos universae consurgere ... Sed ante a 
Romanis obsessa est quam se ipsa cognosceret; et sola omnium provinciarum 
vires suas, postquam victa est, intellexit.”’ 

* TT, :21, 13. 


“KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 25 


with which it begins as Aristotle’s own rather than as a quotation 
from some orator.° And Cope is right, too, in suggesting that 
the maxim means knowing one’s “own incapacity.”” The ima- 
ginary orator in a burst of indignation against some incompetent 
general thus says in effect: ‘It’s all a lie that one must know him- 
self! At any rate, if that fellow had known how incapable he was, 
he would never have claimed the office of General,’ While we 
-have no instance of a yv&@. cavrdév in the extant spoken orations of the 
Ten Orators, this passage, like the address of Thrasybulus in Xeno- 
phon’s Hellenica, indicates the sense in which it was naturally used 
in public speeches, and its evident meaning for the audience. 


This meaning for the maxim is further illustrated in Epictetus’ 
Discourse to a Would-be Cynic.” Being a Cynic involves not merely 
weating a cloak and going about begging with staff and wallet," 
he says. It involves the rising superior to Desire,'* indifference 
to Death,” and the consciousness of having been sent from Zeus"® 
to proclaim to people fearlessly that they are seeking for happiness 
in possessions and in power rather than in indifference to these 
things. A man who is going to be a Cynic must look himself over 
to see if he is equal to the exactions of the Cynic life, just as a con- 
testant at the Olympic Games takes notice of his shoulders and 
thighs.!” Botevoar émipedéorepov, he adds, yvabe cavrov, avaxpwov 7d 
darpoviov, dixa Beod wn éxcxepjops.'® For the Cynic must be in truth 
superior to others if he would teach. He must be as a queen among 


10 Sandys, Aristotle’s Rhetoric With a Commentary by M. Cope, p. 217 n. 13. 
Victorius thinks the words refer to a certain Iphicrates of lowly origin, who 
had come to achieve distinction. Buckley in a note to his translation, p. 173, 
also says: “‘The words probably of some panegyrist of Iphicrates.”’ Cope’s 
refutation seems well-grounded, although in his own rendering he rather over- 
emphasizes the man’s success. 

1% Tt may have been in some such spirit of challenge that Menander made 
one of his characters say: 

Kata TOAN’ Gp’ éoriv ob Kadds elpnyuevov 
TO yv@Ot cavTdv. xpnotwmrTepov Yap Hy 
TO yvG0 Tovs &AXovs. (Stob. Flor. 21.5.) 

TTT, 22. 

13 Sec. 10. 

 See..13. 

%s See, 21. 

16 Sec. 23-26. 

17 Sec. 51-52. 

Sec, 53: 


26 ““kNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


the bees, not a drone claiming superiority over them.!® And so 
the man who is thinking of becoming a Cynic needs to first consider 
his preparation,?? as Hector knew his own preparation for war, 
while, aware of Andromache’s weakness, he bade her go into the 
house and weave."* The general tone of this discourse, and the last 
part in particular, indicate that Epictetus does not think the youth 
in question capable of filling the Cynic’s réle, and his use of the 
maxim is evidently a warning to him to take account of his limited 
capacity.“ The allusion to Hector’s consciousness of his strength 
reminds us of the passage in Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Wise 
Men*® in which Hector is said to know the limits of his ability: 
Kal gyno. Tov pev “Extropa yryvmoKew éavTov, Tots yap &Ados émiTefeuevos 
"AvavrTos ddeewve waxnv Tedeuwriddao.*4 

Plutarch again uses the apophthegm with this force of knowing the ~ 
limits of one’s ability in an ironical passage near the beginning of his 
Life of Demosthenes. He says that in writing the Parallel Lives of 
Demosthenes and Cicero he is going to compare them from the stand- 
point of their deeds and political measures, and not attempt to show 
from their speeches which was the pleasanter or more clever orator. 
And then he gives a thrust at Caecilius: ‘‘ For in that case I would have 
as much strength as a dolphin on dry land,” he says, “a saying of 
Ion’s which that marvellous Caecilius did not know when like a 
hot-headed youth he attempted to bring out a comparison of Cicero 
and Demosthenes. ‘Adda yap tows, ef ravrds Hv TO TvGOu cavrdv exew 
TpOxXELpov, OK Gy eddKEeL mpdcTaypua Belov eivar!’’ Caecilius, as we know, 


19 Sec. 95-99. 

20Sec. 107-109. Cf. I1.6,3. xaddov 5& 7d cldévar rhv adbrod mrapacKkevy kal 
divauw. ... 

1 From J]. VI, 492. 


2 That yv&6 cavrévy was sometimes on the lips of the Cynics themselves 
may be inferred, perhaps, from a fragment of Menander (Diog. Laert. VII, 
3, 2, 83). In describing a wretched cynic for whom he has contempt he calls 
him a dirty beggar, and says of him: 

GAN’ Exeivos pHhua Te 
égbeyEar’ obdey Eugepés ud Tov Aia 
T@ yv@O cavrév, ov6é Tots Bowpévors 
Touro." 

Bc. 21. 

4 From J/. XT. 542. 

* cc. 3. 


~ “KNOW THYSELF’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 27 


was a prominent rhetor of the Age of Augustus,” who wrote copiously 
upon various subjects connected with Greek Oratory; and in com- 
paring the style of Demosthenes and Cicero, he was following a 
line of literary criticism common in his day and earlier.2” But his 
ability was not equal to so delicate a task in Plutarch’s estimation, 
apparently, and the yv@@ cavror is certainly brought in with telling 
irony.” 

As a revelation of a character who was himself keenly conscious 
of what he could and could not do, the letter of the Emperor Julian 
to Themistius is of value in this particular regard. Apparently 
Themistius had written to Julian upon his accession to the throne 
expressing great hope in his rule.2® He told him that God had 
placed him in a position similar to that of Heracles and Dionysus, 
who were at the same time philosophers and kings, and who purged 
the entire land and sea of the evils which infested them; and he 
urged him to shake off all thought of leisure and use his efforts in a 
manner worthy of his high destiny. In his reply Julian warns 
Themistius not to expect too much of him, saying that he is not a 
man of superior natural ability,®® and that while he has never been 
averse to toil and danger, he shrinks from the life into which he has 
been drawn. “Perhaps I seem . . . to be ignoble and small in 
view of the gifts of Fortune,” he says,*! ‘in that I love Athens 


*6 Dionysus of Halicarnassus speaks of Caecilius as his warm friend—Ad Pomp. 
a 

7 See Brzoska, De Canone Oratorum Atticorum, pp. 35-41. 

*8 For an example of a man who did not attempt to do the impossible in 
literature, see Alexander’s characterization of Hesiod in Dio Chrysostom II. 
77R. Alexander is there arguing for the superiority of Homer, and he says 
that not even Hesiod himself was ignorant of how far his ability fell below Ho- 
mer’s—(ayvoety rhv éavtod Sivayw dcov édelrero ‘Ounpov). For while Homer wrote 
about heroes, Hesiod made a catalog of women and sang the praise of woman- 
kind. So Horace says of himself: 

“nec meus audet 
Rem temptare pudor, quam vires ferre recusent.” 
(Ep. II, 1, 258-59) 
And in his Ars Poetica he advises the would-be poet to choose a subjeet according, 
to his ability: 
“‘Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, aequam 
Viribus, et versate diu, quid ferre recusent, 
Quid valeant umeri:” . . . (vv. 38-41). 

29 Julian, Letter to Themistius 253C-254A. 

30 254B. 

31 260B-C. 


28 ‘““RNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


more than the present pomp that surrounds me, praising, of course, 
the leisure of the time I spent there and finding fault with my present 
life on account of its multitudinous duties. But you ought to judge 
about me better, not with a view to my industry or the lack of it, 
but rather looking to the T'v@&: cavrév and the 
"Epdor 5’ éxacros Hvrww’ eidein rexvnv.” 

Being a king appears to me something beyond human powers, and 
a king seems’to need a more divine character, as Plato used to say.”’ 
And in his concluding paragraph he says: “‘Since I am conscious of 
no good in me save this only—that I do not even think I have the 
greatest abilities when I have none—with reason do I cry out and 
bear witness that you must not demand great things of me, but 
entrust everything to God.” This letter breathes throughout the 
spirit of a man who feels himself in a position for which his natural 
abilities and tastes have not fitted him, and that he cannot fill it 
as he ought, try as he may. The connotation of yv@@ cavrdv is 
clear. His success as Emperor is not a question of his industry, he 
maintains, but should rather be judged on the basis of what he 
really has it within his capacity to do. 

While, as Seneca says, “‘ Necesse est se ipsum aestimare, quia fere 
plus nobis videmur posse quam possumus,’”* it is likewise true that 
some people think too meanly of themselves and so fall short of 
their possible attainment. Aristotle’s Little-minded Man* was 
such a person, and prior to Aristotle, the Charmides of Xenophon’s 
Memorabilia.* Charmides, while a mere youth in Plato, is repre- 
sented by Xenophon as a mature man—a man of ability and influence 


82 See Aristophanes, Vesp. 1431. Cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. I, 18: ‘Bene enim 
illo Graecorum proverbio praecipitur: 

‘Quam quisque novit artem, in hac se exerceat.’” 
Also Hor. Ep. I, 14, 44: 
“Quam scit uterque, libens, censebo, exerceat artem.”’ 

% De Trang. An. 6, 3. The entire chapter is relevant. Note especially 
also the words in sec. 4: “Aestimanda sunt deinde ipsa, quae adgredimur, et vires 
nostrae cum rebus, quas temptaturi sumus, conparandae.” See also citation 
on p. 30, n. 41. 

% Aristotle says that Little-mindedness is a more frequent and a worse 
defect than self-conceit (Nic. Ethics 1125a, 35.) Moore, The Ethics of Aristotle, 
pp. 234-5, says this is because the Vain-glorious man does not shrink from great 
tasks which his “unbounded self-confidence may sometimes carry him through,” 
while the Little-minded man is content with low aims and aspirations. Cf. 
Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, vol. II, p. 78, n. 

% TIT, 7, 9. 


“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 29 


in private life, but averse to coming before the people in public. 
Socrates rebukes him for avoiding his duty as a citizen, and meets 
his natural shrinking from the public gaze, and the possible ridicule 
of the Assembly, by pointing out the folly of his fearing to face the 
masses when he copes so readily in conversation with the more 
intelligent and foremost citizens. ‘‘My good fellow,” he says, 
‘‘ uh é&yvoet ceavrov, and do not commit the fault which most people 
commit. For they hasten off to investigate the affairs of others, 
and do not turn to examine themselves. Now do not you be faint- 
hearted in this, but rather stretch every nerve to give heed to your- 
self. And do not neglect the interests of the city, if it is in any 
way possible for it to become better through you.” As we have 
already pointed out, there is an implication of yv@O& cavréy in 
ayvoet cavrév, usually, and the maxim thus has its message for the 
self-depreciating man.*® | 

Evidently Cicero’s brother Quintus also was a man who shrank 
from putting himself forward, and in his letter to him On Standing 
for the Consulship, Cicero reminds him of yv&@ cavrév. He bids 
him think what the State is, what he seeks, and what he is,” and he 
develops each of these points in turn. Then after emphasizing 
the need of the greatest tact and wisdom on Quintus’ part, he urges 
him strongly to make the most of his oratorical gifts, since Rome is 
much influenced by oratory, and he adds: “Quoniam in hoc vel 
maxime est vitiosa civitas, quod largitione interposita virtutis ac 
dignitatis oblivisci solet, in hoc fac ut te bene noris, id est ut intellegas 
eum esse te qui iudicii ac periculi metum maximum competitoribus 
affere possis.”%® In this instance Cicero is trying to impress his 
brother with a realization of his powers as an orator. In another 
letter he tries to rouse him to an appreciation of his literary talent. 
He says near the close of the letter: ‘‘Quattuor tragoedias sedecim 
diebus absolvisse cum scribas, tu quicquam ab alio mutuaris? et 
mé&0os quaeris, cum Electram et Aeropam scripseris? Cessator esse 


% Barker, Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, p. 88, makes too general 
a statement when he says ‘‘ There was something of a tendency to pose in every 
Greek, a tendency which had been rebuked in the old motto ‘Know Thyself.’ ” 
So Nettleship: Lectures on Plato’s Republic, p. 106, speaks of “the inherent ten- 
dency of many Greek peoples to be ‘imitative men,’ always posing instead of being 
themselves.” 

87 De Petitione I, 2. 


38 Sec. 55. 


30 ““RNOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


noli et illud yv&& ceavrov noli putare ad adrogantiam minuendam 
solum esse dictum, verum etiam ut bona nostra norimus.’’® 
A specific phase of ‘knowing what one can do’ is ‘knowing 

one’s special bent.” The importance of this knowledge is a leading 
Platonic idea and it is emphasized by Cicero*® and Seneca,* but it 
is Plutarch” who connects it directly with ya cavrév. He says 
that some people think the Stoics jesting when they claim that the 
Wise Man must be not only prudent and just and courageous, but 
an orator, a poet, a general, a rich man, and addressed as king; yet 
they claim all these things for themselves. But it is not so among 
the Gods, for one is the God of War, and another the God of the 
Oracle, and another the God of Gain. And then he goes on to say: 
“All prerogatives do not belong to all, but one must in obedience 
to the Pythian inscription, abrév xarayabetv. Then he must direct 
his efforts toward the one pursuit for which he is naturally fitted,* 
and not drag himself toward the imitation of some other type of 
life and do violence to nature.’’ Ovid likewise refers to the maxim 
with a slightly extended use of this idea in a characteristic passage 
of his Ars Amatoria. He has been telling of how Venus brings 
harmony and joy in her mating of various animals, and he says: 
“While I was singing of this, Apollo appeared of a sudden, and moved 
with his thumb the strings of his golden lyre. . . . ‘Preceptor 
of wanton love,’ he said, ‘come, lead to my shrine thy disciples, 

Est ubi diversum fama celebrata per orbem 

Littera, cognosci quae sibi quemque iubet. 

Qui sibi notus erit, solus sapienter amabit 

Atque opus ad vires exiget omne suas. 

Cui faciem Natura dedit, spectetur ab illa; 

Cui color est, umero saepe patente cubet; 


Qui sermone placet, taciturna silentia vitet; 
Qui canit arte canat, qui bibit arte, bibat.’” 


39 Letters to Quintus III, 6,7. Cf. Porphyry, De Abstinentia I, 42. 4 @4Xacca. 
. . 6a TodTo 5) wavra Séxera, yiyvmoKovea TO EavTfs peydos. . . . 
40 De Officiis I, 31 (114). “Suum quisque igitur noscat ingenium. . . . 
41 De Trang. An. 6,2. “Et eo inclinandum, quo te vis ingenii feret.” 
“ De Trang. An. c. 12-13. 
3 clra xpho0a mpds & 6 wéguke. . . . Menander may have much the same 
thought in the verses: . 
TO yv@0t cavrov torw ay Ta Tpayyara 
téns Ta cavrod kal rl cor rornréov. (Stob. Flor. 21, 2.) 


“TI, 493 fi. 


x? 


“KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 31 


Inasmuch as the Stoics made yv&& cavrov the very foundation 
of their philosophy and ethics, Epictetus very naturally uses it in 
one instance to mean ‘know what you can do in the realm of Will.’ 
The most important thing for each of us, he says, is to have our will 
such as it ought to be. If we are angry because of what evil-doers 
deprive us of, we should learn not to put so much value upon Things. 
We should not be angry with the man who steals our clothes, for 
we would not lose them if we had not had them.“ The tyrant may 
bind our leg, or cut off our neck, but he cannot bind or take away 
our will. For this reason the Ancients passed on the yr@Ot cavrév.*" 
We ought, then, he goes on to explain, to practice indifference to 
loss and pain in small things, and pass on from little things to greater 
until we become invincible like the athlete who after a series of 
minor victories wins at Olympia. Nothing in the way of enticement 
or money or weather or mood can keep him from going on to con- 
quer.*® Knowing the power of one’s will, then, and the importance 
of developing it, is conceived to be enjoined by the Delphic maxim. 
So Augustine teaches that the man who fails in a given situation 
because he over-estimates his strength of will, fails through ignorance 
of himself. He says of Peter’s Denial: ‘“‘Quantum sibi assumpserat 
Petrus intuendo quid vellet, ignorando quid posset?’’#® And in 
another passage he says in explaining that we often do not know 
how far our will can avail: ““Nempe beatissimus apostolus Petrus 
pro Domino animam ponere plane volebat . . . sed quantas vires 
haberet, voluntas ipsa nesciebat. Proinde vir tantus...se latebat.’° 

T'v@6. cavrév in the sense of knowing one’s ability is thus seen 
to have been used by ancient writers as an injunction not to over- 
estimate or under-estimate what we can do, to determine our natural 
bent, and to be cognizant of the possible achievements of our Will. 
These shades of meaning, however, are, as we have said, merely 


*¥, 18,8. 

Sec. 11-16. Cf. III, 24, 20. ris yap dyaiés éorw oix cidds bs ori; ris 8’ 
oléey radra émtdeAnopévos Sti POapTa Ta yeroueva. . . . 

47 Sec. 17. ’AAN’ 6 rhpavvos Shoe, Ti; 7d oKédos, GAN’ Ggvere?. TL; Tov Tpdxnrov. 
ti oty <ob> Shoe od’ Gvedel; Tiv Tpoalpeow. 51a TodTO maphyyedXov of madaol 7d 
yv@be cavrév. 

48 Sec. 18-23. 

*9In John, LXVI. 1. Cf. XXXII, 5 “Nam infirmitatem suam Petrus 
nesciebat, quando a Domino quod ter esset negaturus audiebat.”’ 

5° De Anima et Eius Origine IV, 11. He also argues that we are ignorant 
of ourselves as touching the extent of our memory. Sec. 9-10. 


32 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


specific connotations of the general idea of ‘knowing one’s meas- 
ure’; and this is true also of the use of the maxim in its further 
meaning of ‘knowing one’s place.’®! 


514 part of Ausonius’ little poem on Chilon is somewhat pertinent in connection 
with the theme of the present chapter: 


“Commendo nostrum yr ceavrdv, nosce te, 
Quod in columna iam tenetur Delphica. 
Labor molestus iste, fructi est optimi, 

Quid ferre possis, quidve non, dinoscere; 
Noctu diuque, quae geras, quae gesseris, 

Ad usque puncti tenuis instar quaerere. 
Officia cuncta, pudor, honor, constantia 

In hoc et ulla spreta nobis gloria.” 


(Ludus Septem Sapientum, 138-145) 


CHAPTER IV 


TNQCEI SATTON As Know Your Ptuace. Its RELATION To 
LOPSPOLTTNH. 


When in Aeschylus’ play Oceanus advised Prometheus to know 
himself, he was, as we have said,' warning him to know his place as 
a subject of the new king of the Gods. Now ‘knowing one’s place’ 
was one of the meanings of that complex Greek virtue cwgpocivn,? 
and because of this phase of similarity it is probable that yv&@. cavrév 
was often given as a definition of the virtue in the ethical discussions 
of Fifth-century Athens. Hence it is that in Plato’s Charmides, 
when another current definition of owypocivn—namely, 76 ra abrod 
mpatreww—was seen to fail, because the man who lacks a knowledge 
of what he can and cannot do beneficially is not always able to do 
his own business, Critias seized upon yva6. cavrdv. To be sure, 
Socrates had virtually put the words into his mouth by using the 
phrases ob yryvwoxe éavrdv ws erpakey and ayvoel 5’ éavror in his pre- 
ceding refutation, but it is also probably safe to assume that Critias 
was repeating something which he had heard before. Socrates’ 
interlocutors usually voiced opinions rife in popular thought and 
discussion,* and besides the statement in the Charmides that the 
definition ra atrod tpdrrev was borrowed,® we have as evidence for 
the general currency of the two definitions a passage in the Timaeus 
ed kal waa ANeyerar TO TpaTTEV Kal yyGvar TA TE adToD Kal éavTdY aw~poVE 
uovy mpoonkerv. Moreover, the fanciful way in which Critias goes 
on in an attempt to show the identity of yv@@ cavrév and awypoctvy 
indicates that he had not given the matter any real thought himself. 
The God at Delphi, he says, uses this yv@t cavrov as a form of address 
to his worshippers, which differs from the usual xatpe because the 


1See p. 12. 


2 See Aesch. Ag. 1425 & 1664; Plato’s Rep. 389D-E; & Laws 696D-E. Also 
Shorey’s review of Jowett’s Translation, A. J. P. XIII. p. 361: “It is only from 
this idea of knowing one’s place that it (cwgpootyn) gets the connotation of ‘self- 
knowledge.’ ” 


3 164D-165A. 

4See Shorey, Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 15. 

5 161B-C. 

6$72A. See Stallbaum’s note: also his Introduction to Charmides, p. 111. 


34 ‘“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


God speaks not as man speaks but with a nobler salutation.” And 
he says always to every one who enters nothing other than Dweypover. 
For 76 T'vG6. cavrov and 7d Lwepove. are the same. But men, mis- 
taking this salutation for an admonition, added the later sayings 
Myéev &yav and ’Eyyia, mapa 6’arn. Plutarch evidently has this 
passage in mind when he says in his E at Delphi:® ‘The god, as it 
were in greeting, addresses each one of us who comes there with the 
T'vG6. cavrov—a salutation in no way inferior to yxatpe.”” Some 
scholars have used these passages in trying to determine the position 
of the inscriptions at Delphi,® but it is better, doubtless, to regard 
Critias’ words not as in any sense historical, but asa piece of pretty 
fancy introduced for literary purposes. As the dialogue proceeds 
Plato treats the subject on the basis of the psychological principle 
of self-knowledge,’° a treatment which formed the starting-point 
of many later disquisitions upon the theme. The connection between 
cwepocivn and yv&i cavréy is shown in other passages also, though 
not often with what we have asserted to be their original point 
of contact. Aristotle, however, brings them together in somewhat 
this sense in the course of his characterization of the High-minded 
man. We recall that he differed from the Little-minded man and 
the conceited man, who knew not themselves, in that he had a true 
and high sense of his own worth." But to be high-minded, his 
worth must be really high, for the man of little worth who deems 
himself so is cwypwv, not peyaddyvxos.'” 


7 For the custom of placing inscriptions at the entrance of Greek dwelling 
houses see Diog. Laert. VI, II, 50 & Julian Or. VI, 200B. Cf. also the Salve 
on the threshold of a Pompeian house. Bekker, Gallus 2, 232 (p. 240 Eng. 
Trans.). 

Sc. Ti: 

® Lagercrantz (Hermes XXXVI, p. 413 ff.) thinks that Plato’s phrase ‘‘the 
later sayings” indicates that yv&@ cavréy was the first in order of all the inscrip- 
tions save the E, and he uses this as an argument against Goettling’s and Ro- 
scher’s view that the E was one of the Spriiche and that yv@& cavrév began a 
hexameter line. Roscher in reply (Hermes XXXVI, 485) argues that Plato 
means that I'vé@ cavrév was first merely in relation to Mnédé& ayary and ’Eyvyia, 
mapa 6’ ry and not in relation to all the inscriptions. - Lagercrantz thinks also 
that if the yv&@ cavrévy was the greeting of the God to the worshipper, the E 
cannot be so construed (p. 417). 

10 See Shorey, Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 15 & n., and p. 17. - 

11 See pp. 17 f. 

2 Nic. Ethics IV, 7. 1123b, 5. 6 yap uxp&v &ktos xal robrwr akiav éavrdv chypwr, 
peyaddyvuxos 5’ ob. 


“ENOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 35 


A good instance of the use of yv&& cavrév by people in general 
in this sense of ‘knowing one’s place’ is recorded by Philo Judaeus. 
In his Embassy to Gaius Philo gives an account of the murders 
perpetrated by Gaius Caesar against those who were near to him by 
reason of kinship or influence. Among his first victims was Macro, 
a man who had befriended Gaius continually in the face of the dis- 
trust of Tiberius, and so had helped him to secure the throne. 
After Gaius became Emperor, Macro pursued him with occasional 
advice and admonition—a course which at length became irksome 
to Gaius and Jed him to put Macro to death. The people, despite 
the number of eminent men whom Gaius was removing, tried to make 
excuses for him at first, and yielding to the prejudice against Macro 
which Gaius had deliberately sought to create, they said that 
Macro was “‘puffed up beyond measure,” and that ‘‘he did not 
thoroughly grasp the Delphic inscription yr@@ cavrdvy . . . For 
what could have made him change the relative positions of Gaius 
and himself so as to virtually make himself ruler and Gaius his 
subject?”’® Whether yv&& cavrdv was actually on the lips of the 
people on the occasion of this incident, or whether it merely came 
spontaneously to the pen of Philo in writing the account in his own 
way, makes little difference. The setting naturally recalled the 
maxim in either case. 


The Emperor Julian introduces the apophthegm playfully in the 
sense of ‘knowing one’s place in the presence of superior wisdom’ 
in one of his letters to Iamblichus. He begins the letter by saying: 
“We ought in obedience to the Delphic inscription to know our- 
selves and not have the face to behave boldly toward a man of such 
great fame—a man whose mere glance it is hard to return, to say 
nothing of meeting him on equal terms when he rouses the harmo- 
nious strains of all wisdom (7#v ravoogov apyoviay); for if Pan were 
to echo his shrill song, every one would stand dumb, even Aristaeus, 
and if Apollo should play on his lyre, every man would keep silence, 
though he knew the music of Orpheus.” TIv&6t cavrév seems to have 
been a favorite maxim with Julian, for he discusses it at length in 


8 Sec. 32 ff. 

4 Sec. 57. 

15 Sec. 69. wréov épuanby rod perpiov’ 7rd Aedgikdvy yopdupa ob dtavéyvw 7d yvdOe 
caurov . . . Ti wabow bandartTeTO Kal peter Tov ev brjKoov adrov eis TAEW GpxoOrToS, 
tov 5 abroxparopa Tdiov eis banxdov xwpar; 

6 Ep. 41:420B. 


36 “KNOW THYSELF’”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


his orations besides bringing it into his letters; and it is interesting 
to observe that while in his orations he gives it the philosophic 
meanings which it had come to acquire, both in the letter to The- 
mistius'? and in this one to Iamblichus he uses it with its ordinary 
force. 


In the passage in the Timaeus to which we referred above'® 
Plato so plays upon the word cwygpou that he appears to connect 
the maxim with the etymological force of owgpoctvyn also.!® He 
is speaking of the Art of Divination and saying that it is something 
that belongs not to a man’s wisdom, but to a dormant or abnormal 
mental state, and the words 76... . yvdvar . . . éavTdv cwyporr 
povw mpoonkey mean that to know oneself is possible only for a person 
in full possession of his faculties. That Plato is giving this meaning 
to yvéva éavrdv in a spirit of mere word-play becomes the more 
apparent when we realize that this is almost the only instance in 
ancient literature in which the maxim may be so construed.”® The 
negative phrase 7d dayvoeiv éavrdv, however, was used somewhat 
frequently to convey the idea of not being in one’s senses—a use 
more or less colloquial,” apparently, and quite apart from its other 


17 See pp. 27f. 

7. 33; 

19 For sweypootvn in its etymological sense, see Plato’s Prot. 323B & 333C. 

20 Plato begins the proemium to his Laws of Inheritance (Laws 923A) with 
the words: & gido, gnoouer, kal arexvds épnucpor, xarewov bu éorw yryvwoKew Ta 
duerep’ abtav xpnuara kai mpds ye buds abrods, Gorep kal 7d THs Ivbias ypaupa ppate 
7a viv. ‘To press the meaning of mental aberration into his allusion to the maxim 
here, however, would be to mistake entirely the highly poetic tone of the passage. 

21 The one instance of the strictly colloquial use of yx cavrév in somewhat 
this sense occurs in a fragment of Epictetus (For a discussion of the fragment 
as a whole see p. 68, n. 55.) e xopevrf ris mwapnyyeAXe TO yvOvas éavrdr, 
otk Gv & tH mpocrdia mpoceixe TS éxiotrpagyva. To recall a heedless xopevrjs to 
himself with a yv&@ cavrévy seems too colloquial, considering the reverence in 
which the maxim was held, and we are probably safe in assuming that it was 
not at all general to apply it in such ways. For oléa with a reflexive used col- 
loquially see Libanius IV, 32, where in accusing a certain Eutropius of slandering 
him, he says that people may say in applause of his insults eb ye, & odros, rodr’ 
&pxwv, Todr’ avip, Todr’ «ides airév. Libanius also expresses the idea of not know- 
ing oneself in the sense of mental unfitness with the verb ofa rather than yeyvaoxw 
in this same oration (sec. 4). He is refuting a statement about the folly of old 
age, and he says: # ob roAunoes eixeiv, ws Ekqpa pev WAatwr, ehnpe 6’ Icoxparns, 
édjper 5€ Logoxd7js, ove éowypdvee 5¢ Topyias, obx Ader 5’ éavrdv 6 Tvaveds éxeivos. 

The Latin phrase “‘si me novi” was a colloquial expression apparently some- 

what allied to the 76 dyvociv éavrdy of the Greeks. See Horace, Sat. I, 9, 22 ff: 


“NOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 37 


connotation as “the opposite of that which the Delphic inscription 
urges.”? Thucydides says of those who survived the Plague that 
as soon as they got up forgetfulness of all things seized them and 
nyvoncay ogas te adrods kal rods émirndeiovs.” Aristotle in discussing 
voluntary and involuntary crime, enumerates the points about 
which a man might be ignorant in committing an involuntary act, 
and says:® a@ravra péev obv tatra ovdels Gv ayvonoeev pt) mavouevos, 
dfdov 5° ws ovdé Tov TpaTTOVTa’ THs yap éavrdv ye;* The author of the 
Epinomis, erroneously ascribed to Plato, when contending that men 
need not fear the jealousy of the Gods in concerning themselves 
with divine matters, says that the Deity knows that He teaches us 
these things, for He would be the most stupid of all if He were igno- 
rant of this, and he adds:” 76 Aeyouevor yap av, dvTws abTd avTo ayvoel, 
xareratvov To duvayevw pavOaverv, GAN’ ov ovyxatpov avev gBdvov dA 
Gedv ayabG yevouévw. So, too, Basil writes to one of his friends:* 
god rére ErtAnodueba, bray Kal éavrovs ayvonowuev. The two meanings of 
76 dyvoeiv éavrév are brought together in Xenophon’s Memorabilia” 
where the phrase is used as a definition for pavia, but pavia in the 
extended sense of not knowing what one thinks he knows. Socrates, 





“Si bene me novi, non Viscum pluris amicum, 
Non Varium facies; . . .” 
Also Cicero In Verrem II, III, 68: “‘Tum, cum te ac tuam vitam nosses, in 


Siciliam tecum grandem praetextatum filium ducebas....” And Pro Sex. 
Rose. 142: ‘‘Quodsi quis est, qui et se et causam laedi putet, cum Chrysogonus 
vituperetur, is causam ignorat, se ipsum probe novit;...” Cf. Hor. Ep. 


I, 18, 1; Ovid. Met. XIII, 840-84; XIV, 356; Petronius, Cena Trim. 58. 
Note further the colloquial use of se—cognoscit in Virgil, Aeneid XII, 903 ff.: 
‘‘neque currentem se nec cognoscit euntem, 
Tollentemve manu saxumve immane moventem:” 
Cf. Ambrose, In. Ps. CXVIII, 3, 30: ‘‘Adam, qui se occultare cupiebat, quia 
se non agnoscebat.”’ 

277, 49, 8. Lucretius evidently had this passage in mind in his description 
of the Plague at Athens (VI, 1213-14): 

“‘Atque etiam quosdam cepere oblivia rerum 
Cunctarum, neque se possent cognoscere ut ipsi”’. 

*3 Nic. Ethics III, 2, 1111a, 6. 

%In discussing the same subject Clement of Alexandria says that a man 
who commits an involuntary crime 4 yap abrév tis Hyvénoew ws KrYeopuévns kai 
"AOduas of wavéevtes. . . . (Strom. ITI, 60.) 

% O88B. 

% Ep. LVI, 74. 

27 TIT, 9. 6-7. 


38 ‘““KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


he says, did not consider avertarnuooiyny madness, but 7d dyvoetv éavrov. 
kal & un ode dofafetv Te Kal oleoBar yryvmoxkerv, &yyuTaTw pwavias édoyifeTo elvat. 
While most people call a man mad who fancies that he is so tall 
that he must stoop in going through the city gates, or that he is 
strong enough to lift houses, they do not call the conceit of knowledge 
madness, for they do not recognize it as an abnormality. To Socra- 
tes, however, thinking one knows what he does not is not only a 
species of madness but an error which yv&& cavrov was designed to 
correct.2® Hence the passage is clearly suggestive of the maxim, 
and the two ideas adhering to 76 dyvoeiy éavrév are blended.” 

The earlier relation of yv@O. cavrov and cwypocivn was, as we have 
shown, a comparatively simple one. But as time went on, the 
connection of the two in Plato’s Charmides, and the Platonic doc- 
trine of the Unity of the Virtues gave rise to a tendency among 
admirers of Plato to make yy cavrdv include not only swypoctivn 
in the large*® but other virtues as well. This tendency is seen in the 
spurious Platonic dialogue known as the Erastae, where the author 
brings forward the maxim as a definition of owgpocivn and makes 
it” include diuxatootbvn also. Socrates is discussing with two young 
men the question of philosophy, what it is and what its province.*! 
The youths reason that the philosopher should be a well-informed 
man, able to converse intelligently with physicians and craftsmen 
though his knowledge would be less expert than theirs; and in order 
to show that the philosopher should have not a second-rate but a 
first-class knowledge of the political art, Socrates is made to resort 
to an argument which seems rather clumsy. The man who knows 
how to punish dogs and horses aright, he argues, knows also how to 
make them as good as possible, hence the art which knows how to 
punish knows the good from the bad. Ifa person has this knowledge 
in the case of the many, he should have it in the case of the one— 
the self. Now horses or dogs in failing to know good from bad 
horses or dogs, fail to know themselves; and so a man who fails to 


28 See c.V. 

29 So Stobaeus (Ecl. Eth. II, 6, 5, 124) says of the Stoics: érz 5 Néyouoe wavra 
gad\ov (in contrast with rév cogév) paivesOar, &yvovay Exovta adrod Kal r&v Kad’ abrov 
brep éori pavia. tiv 5&é Gyvoray elvac warriay Kaxiay TH Twypocbvy. 

30See Alc. IT, 133C: 7d 6€ yeyvmoxev airov adyoroyoduer cwypocivyy elvar; See 
also Wilamowitz’s A pollo, trans. by Murray, page 41: “‘Everything implied in 
that specially Greek way of thinking which is summed up by the untranslatable 
word cwypoctvn belongs to the yv&6 cavrdv of the God.” 

31 135A ff. 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 39 


know good men from bad men would not know whether he himself 
were good or bad. This atrdv dyvoetv is uy owgpovely and conversely 
76 éavrov yryvwokew is cwepoveiv. “This, it seems, forsooth,” Socrates 
says, “is what the inscription at Delphi commands—to practice 
cwepootvn and dixavocvvn, for the virtue by which we know how to 
punish aright is dixavoobvy and that by which we know ourselves is 
cwypootvn, and if to know how to punish involves a knowledge of 
oneself, dixacocivn and owgpocivn are the same.” “Cities are well- 
_ governed when the wrong-doers give justice,” he goes on to say, and 

so connects cwypocivn and dixaoobvn with the political art, of which 
the true philosopher must have superior knowledge.* The essential 
connection between justice and gwypocbvn was expressed by Plato 
in the Laws,** and the unity of the Virtues in general was a favorite 
Platonic thought, but in none of the genuine dialogues do we find 
their unity proved by recourse to the kind of reasoning employed 
here. The tendency torelate the four cardinal virtues to yv&0 cavrov 
became distinctly marked in the Neo-Platonists, however, and the 
Erastae may be regarded as in a sense a connecting link between 
them and the Charmides. 

Porphyry says in his work on T'v@& Zavrov that we never hear 
gweypove. used in the sense of c&fe tiv gpovynow, although cwepoctvy is 
a certain caogpoctvy; if we did so regard it, however, we would discuss 
TO ypovety and the cause of 7d gpovetvy, which is vos, and it is therefore 
necessary to know one’s essence.** Porphyry thus connects gpdvyats 
with gwypoctvn and both with yv&& cavrov. So Gregory Thau- 
maturgus connects the three somewhat similarly in his Im Origenem 
Oratio Panegyrica® when he says of Origen: ‘‘He taught us to be 
wise (gpovety) and to be with self, and to wish and try to know our- 
selves. This indeed is the noblest function of philosophy, which is 
ascribed to the most oracular of the gods, since it is an all-wise 
command—the T'v@@ cavrév. . . . This is well said by the Ancients 
to be the divine gpévnos. ... He taught us also cwepoveiy kal 
avipivecbar, and by owypovety he meant keeping this gpdryors of the 
soul knowing itself.”” Olympiodorus says that to know oneself 


32 138A. 

33 696C. 

% Stob. Flor. 21:27. 
*C. XI. 


40 “NOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


is a part of every virtue, and he explains how it is a part of awypoctvn 
and gpovnots and dvdpia and dixacoobyn in turn.*? That yr cavrov 
gave courage is the purport of Philostratus’ account of a conversation 
between Apollonius of Tyana and Demetrius regarding the danger 
that Apollonius was in at the hands of Domitian. Apollonius 
anticipated that Demetrius would advise him to go into hiding where 
he was not known, and he said:*® “I think that the wise man should 
do nothing privately. . . . And whether the Pythian inscription 
is the command of Apollo himself, or of some man who knew himself 
soundly and therefore made it a maxim for all, it seems to me that 
the wise man in knowing himself and keeping his intelligence at hand 
should not cower before any of the things which most people fear.” 
If self-knowledge is a part of every virtue,*® then conversely a lack 
of virtue implies a lack of self-knowledge, and this is expressed by 
Apuleius when in reviewing Plato’s types of character corresponding 
to the degenerate forms of states,*° he says of the worst—the tyrant 
type—‘‘Hunc talem nunquam in agendis rebus expedire se posse 
non solum propter inscientiam sed quod ipse etiam sibimet sit igno- 
tus" et quod perfecta malitia seditionem mentibus pariat.”’ 


% In Alc. I, Vol. II, p. 214 ed. Creuzer. dd\ws yap 76 yuwooxev éavrdv raons 
Gperys éoTt. . . 

37 Hierocles in his Commentary on the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans, pp. 
64-65, also discusses the virtues and relates them to yv@6 cavrév. 

38 A poll. of Ty. VII, 14, 137. eye wyoduar rdv cogdr under idia pnd’ ey’ éavrod 
mpatrev ... Kal elre "Aré\Nwvos abrod 7d IlvOot ypappa eire dvipds bytds éavrdv 
yryvaeockwy Kal wapacratny éxwv Tov EavTod vody wht’ av mrntai te Gv of woddol. . . . 

39 Virtue is said to know itself (Cicero De Amicitia XXVI) and Wisdom 
cannot be ignorant of itself (Cic. Acad. Quaest. II, 8) and self-knowledge is the 
only safe criterion of truth (Gregory of Nyssa, In Cant. Cant., Homily III p. 
810B vol. 44). 

40 De Dogmata Plat. Il, 16. 

“1 Cf. the famous verses in Seneca’s Thyestes (401-403): 

“Tili mors gravis incubat 
Qui notus nimis omnibus 
Ignotus moritur sibi.” 


CHAPTER V 
TNQOI SATTON As Know THE Limits oF Your Wispom 


We have said that Alcibiades and Alexander are the stock exam- 
ples of men who preéminently did not know themselves. Plato 
would have us believe that the one great character who above all 
others did know himself was Socrates. The importance which 
Socrates attached to the maxim is brought out in a passage in Plato’s 
Phaedrus to which we shall frequently have occasion to refer. As 
Socrates and Phaedrus in their walk along the banks of the Ilissus 
draw near to the spot where Boreas was said to have carried off 
Oreithuia,! Phaedrus reminds Socrates of the story and asks him 
if he believes it. Socrates replies with the rationalistic interpretation 
of the myth which the wise skeptics of the day put forth, but declares 
that of such rationalizing there is no end. He has no time for such 
things, however, and he gives the reason why—‘‘I am not able yet,” 
he says, “to know myself, according to the Delphic inscription. 
Indeed it appears ridiculous to me to reflect upon alien matters 
while I am still ignorant of this) And so bidding Good-bye to these 
questions and believing what is thought about them, as I just now 
said, I consider not these matters but myself—whether I happen to 
be some beast more intricate and full of passion than Typho, or a 
simpler and more gentle creature, sharing in some divine and less 
monstrous destiny.”? If in his life-long search after self-knowledge 
Socrates did come to know himself better than most men,’ Plato 
maintains that it was because he did not think he knew what he 
did not./ He says in the A pology that if Apollo is right in declaring 
him to be the wisest man, it is because he knows that he has no wis- 
dom.‘ Wisdom is the virtue that most people have a false conceit 
about, he says in effect in the course of that passage in the Phile- 


1229 B ff. 

2 Phaedrus 229E-230A. od dbvayal rw xara Td Aedguxoy ypdppa yrSvar éuavrév. ~ 
yedotoy 69 wor gaiverar TovTo ert &yvootbvTa Ta GAAOTpLA oKoTeEtv. SHev 51) Xalpew édoas 
radra, weBduevos 5¢ 7TH voutfouery epi abrav, 6 vuvd) Edeyov, skoTG ob rabra add’ Euaurov, 
eire Tt Onpiov bv Tuyxdvw Tvgdvos modvTdoKwrepov Kal waddAov éercTeOvuppevor, elre huep- 
@tepov Te Kal dmdoborepov Gov, Oelas Tivds kal arigov poipas ylae peTeXor. 


frig. 8 Note Hippolytus, Adv. Her. I, 18: Zwxparns . . . 6s 7d rH cavrov mpo- 
Tyunoas. . .. ei Spe 


423A-B. See Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, pp. 122-123, Eng. 
Trans. 


42 “KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


bus® in which he declares that ignorance of self is the opposite of 
what the Delphic inscription bids, and discusses the forms which 
such ignorance may take. And this false conceit of wisdom, often 
designated by duafia, is a conception that runs all through Plato. 
We meet it sometimes in definition, sometimes in discussion, and 
again we see it exemplified in the very men whom Socrates is trying 
to refute. It is defined in the Sophist® as 76 wh xareddra te Soxety 
eldevor, and in the Symposium’ as 76 wh bvTa Kaddv Keyabov nde epdvipov 
doxetv air@ efvar ixavdv. It is discussed in the Sophist,’ and at greater 
length in the Theaetetus.° The bigoted Euthyphro, the rhapsodist 
Ion, Hippias the Wise, the two sophists in the Euthydemus, and other 
characters in greater or less degree, are all afflicted with this dyafia. 
It is truly a universal fault, characteristic not only of the youthful 
skeptics,!® of the philosopher-politicians," and of the men who spend 
their time in debate,” but of the ordinary artisan as well. This 
universal fault Plato shows to be a serious one,!* endangering the 
state, threatening religion,” and leading to crime. Socrates made 
it the mission!” of his life to help rid men of it, for cross-examination 
and refutation, he claimed, purify the soul of its conceit,!8 and those 
who would submit thereto made wonderful progress. Men knew 
that if they talked with Socrates, Plato tells us, they must give an 
account of their lives, and in his presence even Alcibiades became 
humble.” If then this false conceit of wisdom, of which Socrates 
by his presence and conversation so persistently convicted men, 
is, as he maintained, a failure to heed the Delphic maxim, Socrates 


540A. 

6 229C. 

7 204A. 

8 229 fi. 

9 150C ff. 

10 Laws 886B. 

1 Kuthydemus 305C. 
12 Phaedo 90B-C. 

13 A pology 22C-D. 

14 Tim. 86B. 

Laws 886B-E. 

16 Laws 863C-D. 

17 A pol. 23B. 

18 Soph. 230B-D. 

19 Thaeet. 150D. 

20 Laches 187E-188A. 
21 Sym. 216A-C. 


““RENOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 43 


himself, who in his ironical affectation of ignorance claimed to 
know nothing, and who was too busy to rationalize mythology 
until he should know what manner of man he was, really obeyed the 
God’s behest better than did the generality of mankind. 

This extended use of yv&6 cavréy in the sense of ‘knowing the 
limits of one’s wisdom’ occurs in the works of three of Plato’s con- 
temporaries. Xenophon’s use of it we have already discussed.” 
Aristophanes, as we might expect, refers to it in the Clouds.* Strep- 
siades has proved a sorry pupil in the school of Socrates and is trying 
to persuade his son Pheidippides to attend in his place. “What 
good could any one learn from them?” Pheidippides asks; and 
Strepsiades replies: 

&Anbes ; Boamep Eat’ ev aVOpwrols Goya’ 

yvmon 6€ cavTov ws dpabys ef Kal taxis. 
Hermann says of this passage ‘‘Haud ego credam, quod Suverino 
p. 7 visum est, facile hic tangi illud ab Socrate discipulis commenda- 
tum yva6c cavrév.’* But it is hard to see how Hermann or anyone 
else who is familiar with Plato should hesitate to agree with Siivern. 
The phrase yrwoyn . . . cavrdv could scarcely mean anything else 
toa Greek ear, and no better catch-words could be found to describe 
the Socratic teaching than are contained in the second of the above 
verses. 

Isocrates also gives this meaning to the Delphic inscription in 
his Panathenaicus. The oration really contains an essay within an 
essay—a long historical account of Athens’ greatness which Isocrates 
represents himself as having written. When he had finished all 
but the conclusion,” he says, he read it with three or four of his pupils, 
and then called in a former disciple who had been used to an oli- 
garchical form of government and had been given to praising the 
Lacedaemonians, thinking that he would be especially quick to notice 
any errors. The man approved the speech in general, but did not 
like what had been said about Sparta, and he thereupon made bold 
to say that Greece ought to be grateful to Sparta because she had dis- 


22 See pp. 37 f. 

3 vv. 841-2. 

*4 Note on Nubes, p. 109. 

* Starkie, The Clouds of Aristophanes p. 190, weakly says: ‘‘possibly, as 
Siivern (iiber Ar. Wolken, p. 7) suggests, an allusion to the Delphic yva@ cavréy.” 
Humphreys, however, declares it ‘‘the expansion of the Delphic yx8% caurév.” 
(Clouds p. 160). Forman also sees the allusion to the maxim (p. 167). 

*6 Panathenaicus 200. gee 


44 ‘“ENOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


covered the noblest of pursuits and had taught them to others.?’ 
Isocrates in turn proceeds to confute this idea by objecting to the 
ends of Spartan education and her attitude toward her neighbors; 
and at length his critic, who has dared to interpose but once, goes 
away ‘‘a wiser man with the sails of his opinion furled, having ex- 
perienced”’ Isocrates says, “that which is written at Delphi, and 
knowing himself and the character of the Lacedaemonians better 
than before.’’® It is evident that the man had been afflicted with 
that conceit of wisdom which the Platonic Socrates so deplores, and 
“knowing himself’? means that he had come to see the worthlessness 
of his opinions. 

The Socratic theme of man’s proneness to think he knows what 
he does not became something of a tag among later writers,”® though 
it is not often again associated so closely with the maxim.*? 
There is at least a hint of this conceit of wisdom, however, in the 
story told of Hipparchus in the spurious Platonic dialogue which 
bears his name, and it is essentially the purport of a passage in Dio 
Chrysostom. Iv&6 cavrév is introduced in the Hipparchus, as in 
Plato’s Protagoras, not so much for the sake of its own meaning as 
by way of humorous illustration in connection with another apoph- 
thegm. Socrates and his interlocutor are discussing the love of 
Gain, and Socrates is accused of deceiving his companion by turning 
things topsy-turvy in his arguments.* He replies that in that case 
he would not be heeding Hipparchus, who set up Herms in every 
deme, bearing epigrams of his own composing, that the people might 
not marvel at the wise inscriptions at Delphi—the T'v@@: cavréy and 
the Mndev &yay and the rest—but think the sayings of Hipparchus Wiser 
and flock to him to learn more. One of these epigrams of Hippar- 
chus contained the injunction pi gidov é£arara,® which is the point 


27 Sec. 202. 
28 Sec. 230. 6 we yap ame gpovipmrepos yeyernuévos Kal ouverrahyerny Exwv 
Thy Stavoray . . . Kal werovOes 7d yeypaupéevov & Aedgois, abrév tr’ eyvwKas Kal THV- 


Aaxcdatpoviwy gbow paddov } mpdtepor. 

29 See, for instance, Philo Judaeus, De Plant. 81; De Ebriet. 162-3. Lactantius, 
De Ira Dei, I. 

30 Hieronymus brings the two together in one of his epistles (LVII, 12): 
“Atque utinam Socraticum illud haberemus ‘Scio quod nescio’ et alterius 
Sapientis . . . Teipsum intellige.” 

31 228A. 

82 228E. 

33 229A. 


“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 45 


of Socrates long digression about him and his service to Athenian 
culture. As we have said, the passage is half-humorous, and we 
are tempted to imagine a touch of irony in Hipparchus’ so esti- 
mating his own wisdom as to count his inscriptions superior to the 
revered yv&% cavrév, although we must not go beyond the text in 
pressing the inference. 

The passage, or rather story, in Dio Chrysostom illustrates man’s 
presumption in trying to know other men and God™ before knowing 
himself, and this is a phase of the false conceit of wisdom. As 
Diogenes was going along the road from Corinth to Athens one day, 
he fell in with a man who had started out to consult the oracle at 
Delphi, but as his slave had run away he was going back to Corinth 
to try to find him.* After talking with the man about the unwis- 
dom of trying to recapture a bad slave, the question of the value 
of consulting the oracle came up.* Diogenes said he did not object 
to the man’s making use of the oracle if he was able to do so, but it 
is hard to make use of either God or man if one does not know how; 
and then he proceeded to ask questions in true Socratic fashion 
with illustrations from animals, cithara-playing, and the like, until 
he brought the man to admit that he who is ignorant of man is 
incapable of using man, and accordingly he who is ignorant of himself 
would not be able to use himself. Then Diogenes asks: “Have you 
already heard, then, of the inscription at Delphi—the T'v@@ cavrév?”’ 
“Certainly,” the man replies; and the conversation proceeds:*” “ Now 
is it not evident that the God gives this command to all on the ground 


that they do not know themselves?” “Probably.” ‘“‘And you for- 
sooth would be one of the all?” “Yes.” ‘“‘Then not even you 
know yourself at all?” “It seems so to me.”’ “And in that you 


are ignorant of yourself you are ignorant of man, and not knowing 
man you are unable to make use of man; but while you are incapable 
of making use of man, you try to make use of God!” 


34 See pp. 94 f. 
* Or. X, 295R. 
6 301R. 
7 303R. 


CHAPTER VI 
INQOI SATTON As Know Your Own FAvtts 


In the Phaedrus passage to which we have referred! Socrates 
said that he considered himself to see whether he happened to be 
some beast more intricate and full of passion than Typho, or whether 
he was a gentler and more simple creature, sharing in some divine 
and less monstrous destiny. This is giving to yv@& cavrév the sense 
of knowing one’s soul, and includes a knowledge of one’s disposi- 
tion—of one’s temper and spirit. From this conception it is not a 
far cry to the thought that a man should know his own faults; and 
in time, through the influence of the Stoics probably, this force came 
to be definitely attached to the apophthegm. Sometimes we find 
it so used where the individual alone is concerned, but more often 
the emphasis is upon knowing our own faults rather than those 
of other people. As an instance of the former L. Schmidt? cites the 
questions of the Pythagoreans:? 1H mapéBn; ti 5’ epeéa; Ti por déov 
ovK éredé€obn; but while we have abundant evidence that yr cavrov 
was one of the watchwords of the school,* and know that the dis- 
ciples were supposed to pass in retrospect their daily conduct,® 
we do not happen to find the maxim applied in this connection in the 
little Pythagorean literature extant. There is a possible suggestion 
of it in a pertinent passage in Seneca, however, and Galen and Plu- 
tarch introduce it definitely with this connotation. 


Seneca in one of his Epistles quotes with approval a statement 
of Epicurus—“Initium est salutis notitia peccati”—and says | 
himself® ‘‘Nam qui peccare se nescit, corrigi non vult. . .. Ideo 


1 See p. 41. 

2 Ethik der alten Griechen, vol. II, p. 395:—‘‘Vielfach dachte man dabei 
nur an die Beobachtung der eigenem Fehler. Unter den Mitgliedern der pytha- 
goreischen Schule galt es als Vorschrift sich tagtiglich die Frage vorzulegen, 
welche in dem gern erwahnten Verse . . . ihren Ausdruck gefunden hatte: 

Worin hab’ ich gefehlt? Was gethan? Welche Pflichten verabsiumt?”’ 

* Diog. Laert. VIII, I, 19 (22). Plut. De Curiositate c. 1. 

* Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans 14-15. Stob. Flor. 108, 81. Iam- 
blichus, Life of Pythagoras XVIII: 83. 

5 See Cicero, De Senectute 38. Ausonius VII, 3—De Viro Bono Uv0ayopixy 
*Anégaois, esp. vv. 14-15. 

6 Ep. Mor. III, 7, 10. 


““RNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 47 


quantum potes, te ipse (co)argue, inquire in te:’ accusatoris primum 
partibus fungere, deinde iudicis, novissime deprecatoris.”’ Galen 
says in his chapter entitled De Propriorum Animi cuiusque A ffectuum 
Dignotione et Curatione:® “‘ We see all men fancying that they are free 
from error altogether, or that they make merely a few slight mistakes 
in judgment, and this is especially true of those whom others think 
err the most. . . . Those who allow others to reveal their opinion 
about what sort of people they are, I have seen make the fewest 
mistakes, but those who take it for granted that they are good, 
without leaving it to others to judge, stumble most seriously and 
most frequently. So while as a lad I thought that the Pythian com- 
mand to know oneself was needlessly praised, and that it was not such 
a great saying, I later found that men’s praise of it was just.”” Galen 
hints here at what he says explicitly farther on—that the way to 
know one’s faults is to allow an impartial critic to tell us the truth 
about them. But our self-love stands in the way, and self-love is 
fed by flattery.° ‘‘The flatterer,’’ Plutarch says,!° “‘is likely to be 
an enemy to the Gods and especially to the Pythian; for he always 
acts counter to the yv@i& cavrév, deceiving each of us with reference 
to himself, and causing self-ignorance. He makes a man ignorant 
of both his good and bad qualities to the extent of degrading his 
good points into failures and imperfections, and his bad ones into 
something irremediable.’’ Farther on in this same essay Plutarch 
exhorts the reader to do away with his self-love and conceit, for these 
serve to make him an easier prey to flattery. ‘‘If we obey the God,” 
he goes on to say, ‘“‘and learn that the yv&& cavrov is all-important 
for each of us, and if at the same time we see that there are countless 
failures to attain the Good in our nature and rearing and education, 
while much that is reckless and bad is mixed in with our actions and 
words and experiences, we shall not so easily place ourselves in the 
Flatterer’s path.’’™ 


7Summers, Select Letters of Seneca, notes, p. 197 says: ‘‘Inquire in te, 
like (Tranq. 6.2) se ipsum aestimare, a variant for yv@@ cavrév (te Nosce 
94, 28).” 

8 Vol. V.c. II, p. 3-4, Kuhn. 

® The effect of flattery in blinding men to their faults is distinguishable 
from its effect in making them think themselves more powerful than they are. 
Hence its connection with yv&: cavrév here differs from that indicated in c. IT. 

10 De Discernendo Adulatore et Amico, c. 1. 

Mc, 25. 


48 “KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


Our proneness to see others’ faults rather than our own is indicated 
by the author of the Magna Moralia.™ He says: ‘‘Since then it 
is very hard, as some of the Wise have declared, to know oneself— 
we are unable to contemplate ourselves from within ourselves; 
and because we are unable to know ourselves, we evidently do 
unwittingly the very things for which we find fault with others.’ 
We next meet this idea in connection with the maxim’ in a humorous 
bit of word-play in Horace’s Satire on our Intolerant Judgment of 
Others: 


““Maenius absentem Novium cum carperet, “Heus tu,’ 
Quidam ait, ‘ignoras te, an ut ignotum dare nobis 
Verba putas?’ ‘Egomet mi ignosco,’ Maenius inquit.” 


While all commentators recognize the play on ignoras, ignotum and 
ignosco, and the general sense of the passage, no one seems to have 
called attention to the fact that “ignoras te” is the opposite of 
yveb. cavrév. Seneca puts the thought vigorously in his De Vita 
Beata:* ‘‘Have you time to seek out another’s faults,” he asks, “‘and 
to disclose your opinion of any one? . . . Do you observe another’s 
pimples when you are covered with numerous sores? This is as if 
some one should ridicule the moles or warts on some very beautiful 
person, while he is being consumed by the cruel mange himself... . 
Will you not rather look at your own faults?... Are human conditions 
such that even if statum vestrum parum nostis, you have sufficient 
time to wield your tongue to the reproach of your betters?” The 
phrase “‘Statum vestrum ... nostis”’ is certainly a reminder of yv&0 
cavrov, but again it is Plutarch who uses the exact words of the maxim 
with this application. He tells us in his De Inimicorum Utilitate of 
how when Plato was in company with men of disorderly character, 
he was wont to ask himself My zov dp’ éym rowidros; “If he who 
calls into reproach the life of another,” Plutarch goes on to say, 


2 This was probably written as early as the 3rd century B. C. See Burnet, 
Ethics of Aristotle, Intro. p. XI. 
3 TT, 15. 1213a, 14 ff. 
4 Hor. Sat. I, 3, 22-23. 
% VII, 27, 4-6. Cf. Terence Heaut. Tim. 503-505: 
“Ita comparatam esse hominum naturam omnium 
Aliena ut melius videant et diiudicent 
Quam sua!” 
Also vv. 922-23: 
“‘Nonne id flagitiumst, te aliis consilium dare, 
Foris sapere, tibi non posse te auxiliarier?”’ 


“KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 49 


shall ‘‘straightway consider his own and correct it ... he will derive 
some advantage from the rebuke... A man who is going to censure . 
another ought not to be clever, and loud-voiced, and hasty, but he 
should be above reproach and without offence; for upon no one is the 
God so likely to have enjoined the yr cavrév as upon him who is 
going to find fault with another.’’ 

While the Ancients had many ways of expressing the thought 
contained in our New Testament figure of the beam and the mote,!” 
probably the oldest and most common was Aesop’s fable of the two 
sacks. ‘“‘Juppiter placed upon us two sacks,” the fable reads: 
“the one laden with others’ faults he hung before our heart; the other, 
filled with our own, he placed behind our back. And so it is that 
we cannot see our own evil deeds, but condemn others when they 
fail.”18 This fable is referred to with particular frequency among 
the Latin poets. Horace alludes to it in his Satire on the Stoic 
paradox that all save the Wise Man are mad: 


“Dixerit insanum qui me, totidem audiet, atque 
Respicere ignoto discet pendentia tergo.’’!” 


1% De Inimicorum Utilitate c. 5. The last clause reads: obdevi yap ottws Eoxe 
mpootattev 6 eds, ws TB wéANovTL WEeyew Erepov, To yv@b. cavrév. Cf. De Audiendo 
VI, 40 D-E, where he quotes the same query of Plato’s, and says that while it 
is easy to blame our neighbor, it is useless and idle unless one corrects and guards 
against like faults in himself. Cf. also De Cohibenda Tra c. 16 (463E) & De Curio- 
sitate c. 2. Cf. also Basil Hex. IX, 6: 7G bvre yap toe TayTwr elvar xaderwrarov 
éavrov émiyvavar . . . Huav 6 vods dtews 7d GAAOTPLOV audpTnua KaTaBdérwv Bpadls 
éoTt wpdos THY T&V oikelavy EXaTTWUATwWY éeriyrwoU,. 

17 For Greek and Roman expressions, see the two from Seneca cited above. 
Also Horace, Sat. I, 3, 73-74: 

“Qui ne tuberibus propriis offendat amicum 
Postulat, ignoscet verrucis illius.”’ 
And Petronius Satyricon, 57: ‘‘In alio peduclum vides, in te ricinum non vides.” 

18 A translation of Phaedrus IV, 9. Babrius’ version (no. 66) reads: 

Ocev Ipoundeds qv tis, AMAA TSV TeaTwr. 
Tovrov tAdcacbal pact Seardryy Fawr 
&vOpwrov & yas éx dé Tod Siw mhpas 
Kpeudoa pepovTa pact Tay év avOparots 
Kak@v yeuobouas, Tv mpdcw wey dOveiwv 
iwv 6 <tiv> Sricber, Hris Hv welfwr. 
5:6 pot Soxotat cuugopas wey &A\ARAWY 
Brérew axpiBds, dyvoetv 5é Tas olor. 

See also Seneca De Ira II, 28, 8 & Plut. Crass. 32. 

19 Hor. Sat. II, 3, 298-99. Kiessling and Dillenberger see here a reference 
to “‘caudam trahat,” v. 52, and Orelli- Mewes and Rolfe give alternative explana- 
tions, but surely the allusion to the fable is perfectly apparent. 


50 ‘““RNOW THYSELF’’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


And Catullus uses it in writing of the poet Suffenus, who was never 
so happy and proud of himself as when he was writing verses. ‘‘Of 
course we all make the same mistake,’’ Catullus reflects, ‘and there 
is no one whom you cannot see a Suffenus in something.” 


“Suus cuique attributus est error 
Sed non videmus manticae quod in tergo est.’’?° 


Persius brings the fable into his fourth Satire—a poem of which 
Gildersleeve says: ‘‘The theme of the satire is contained in the 
closing verses. It is the Apollinic yva@ cavrov.”*' The first part 
of the poem is very obviously based upon the Alcibiades I, and the 
thought of the maxim continues as the ideas grow more general. 

“Ut nemo in sese temptat descendere, nemo, 

Sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo!””” 
the poet exclaims, and then he goes on to say in effect: “ You ask 
about a certain rich man’s property and you hear him criticised 
for his miserliness, but your own luxury and bad habits are criti- 
cised also. We slay others, and in turn expose our limbs to the 
arrows. This is the rule of life: this is its lesson. We try to conceal 
our defects, and give credence when men speak well of us, but their 
praise amounts to little if we are guilty of avarice and wrong.” 
And in conclusion he says: 


“Tecum habita: noris® quam sit tibi curta supellex.” 


While yv&& cavrov is not expressed here in so many words, the poem 
as a whole, and the verses we have quoted in particular, seem based 
upon it, and it is probably not too much to say that the fable of the 
two sacks and the maxim meet in the above couplet. Connington 
renders the verses freely: “‘None of us knows himself. Every one 
thinks only of his neighbor’’;* and Gildersleeve says: “‘The thought 
is simply noscere se ipsum.” 

The maxim and the fable meet again in Galen also. He says 
he is going to tell how one can learn of his faults, “encouraging 
him who is familiar with this inscription and is feeling it incumbent 


20 Catullus 22, 15-21. 

21 The Satires of Persius p. 141. 

2 vy, 23-24. 

#3 Certain MSS. have “‘Tecum habita ut noris”. .. . 


*% Persius, with trans. and com. by Connington, ed. by Nettleship. (3rd ed. 
revised) p. 79. 


% Page 147. 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 51 


upon him to seek a way by which one can recognize himself in error 
(€avroy . . . ‘yruwpifew dpapravovra)’’? and he adds: dvo yap, as 
"Avowmos éeve, mhpas éEnuuela Tov Tpaxndov, Tav péev AddAoTplwy Thy 
mpoow, Tav idiwv 5 tHv dticw’® We have already anticipated Galen’s 
application of the fable—that since we can see each other’s faults 
but not our own, we may learn of ours by being told them by some 
one else, provided we conquer our self-love, and can find as judge 
an acquaintance who neither loves us nor hates us.?’ 


% C. II, in vol. V, p. 6, ed. Kuhn. 
7 C. I. 


CHAPTER VII 


T'NQOI ZATTON As Know You ARE HumMAN AnD MorTAL 


In Pindar’s Third Pythian Ode we find expressed one of the 

commonplaces of Greek thought in the verses:! 
Xp} TA EorxdTa Tap Saudver pacTevéeuer, Ovarats ypacir, 
yvovTa TO Tap Todds, Olas eiev aicas. 
The scholiast upon the passage says: ‘‘ This is similar to the yv@ cavtév 
of ChiJon, meaning that we are by nature mortal.’ But it is not at 
all likely that Pindar had the apophthegm in mind here, for it is not 
until the days of Menander that the two are definitely brought 
together. The injunction to think mortal thoughts, however,— 
to recognize our human limitations and know that we must die— 
is as old as Archilochus, who says: 
vyiyvacke 5’ olos pucuds avOpwrous Exer.? 

And the tragic and comic poets—yes, and the prose writers too— 
reiterate the theme. Sometimes they emphasize the thought that 
we are only human beings, subject to human vicissitudes, and so 
must not think too highly of our human powers; sometimes they 
dwell upon the thought that death awaits us; and again, as in the 
above passage from Pindar, the two ideas are both expressed. They 
are but two shades of the same conception, really, and they are 
never far apart. Sophocles has the first shade of meaning chiefly 
in mind when he says that Ajax brought his sufferings upon himself, 


ob Kat’ &vOpwirov ypovav.' 


1TTT, 59-60. 
2Vol. II, p. 76 ed. Drachmann: éyouwv 7G Xidwvos arogbéeyuare TG Tre 
cauTov. Td 5é bdov, Ste Ovnrol wegixape. 
3 Anthologia Lyrica frag. 62, v. 7, ed. Bergk-Hiller. 
4 Ajax. 777. Cf. Eur. Frag. 963 ed. Nauck: 
une’ ebrixnua undey 05’ EoTw peya, 
6 o” eewapet petfov h xpewv ppoveiv 
und’ Hv Te ovp BR Svoxepés, SovAod waduw* 
GAN’ aires aie uiuve THy cavTov gbaw 
c@fwr BeBaiws Sore xpvads & tupl. 
Cf. also Her. I, 207; Pindar, Isth. V, 16, & Nem. XI, 15; Aesch. frag. 159, Nauck. 
Euripides Bacchae 199, 395-6, 1002-1004; Iph. at Aulis 31; frag. 79, Nauck. 
Isoc. I, 21; Dem. Against Leptines 161. Diphilus frag. 106, ed. Koch vol. II, 
p. 574. Cato, frag. II, 2. p. 26. ed. Hanthal: 
“An di sint caelumque regunt, ne quaere doceri; 
Cum sis mortalia quae sint mortalia, cura.” 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 53 


And with similar feeling the Romans sought to remind the victorious 
general at his triumph that he was only human, for the slave who 
stood behind him on the triumphal car holding a golden crown over 
his head kept saying: “‘Respice post te: hominem te memento.’’5 
The other meaning—the idea that death is before us—is clearly 
expressed by Heracles’ words in Euripides’ Alcestis: 


Ta Ovnta mpayyat’ olabas Hy exer plow ; 
“ ve al > a 

Bporots &ract katOavety dvetNeTar 

KovK tote Ovntav boris ekeriorarar 

Thv avprov werdovoay ei Buwcerau’? 


A good instance of the juxtaposition of the two ideas occurs in a 
fragment of Democritus:® ywwoKev xpéwy avOpwrivnv Biorhy &gauphy Te 
éodoay Kai ddvyoxpoviov. . . . And when the word 6ynré is used it always 
gives the added suggestion of death, even if the emphasis of the 
sentence as a whole is upon our humanity rather than upon our 
mortality. For example, Sophocles says in one of his fragments:® 

mas Ont’ Eywy’ av Ovnros ix Ovnris TE gus 

Atos yevoiunv eb gpovety cogwrepos ; 
and in another:!° 

Kanov gpovety tov Ovynrov avOpwrots toa. 


So Pliny implies the one shade of meaning while expressing the 
other when he says:—“‘dum infirmi sumus—tunc deos, tunc hominem 
esse se meminit.”"' We naturaJly look for this commonplace not 
only in the literature, but among the sepulchral inscriptions, and 
we find it frequently in both the Greek and the Latin collections. 
The passer-by is repeatedly enjoined to know the end of life,” or to 


5 Tertullian, Apol. 33. 

6 vv. 780 ff. 

7 Cf. Philemon frag. 107, Koch II, p. 512. 
8 285 Diels. 

® 481, Nauck. 


10 Frag. 321. Bentley ascribes to Epicharmus the quotation in Aristotle’s 
Rhetoric 11, 21, 6: @vard xpy Tov Ovardr, obk dBdvara rév Ovardv gpoveiv. Cf. Soph. 
frag. 531: @vara gpoveiv xpi Ovnriv giow. .. . 

Eur. Alcestis 799: dvras 5& Ovnrovs Ovnra Kal gpovety xpecdv. 

11 Ep. VII, 26. 


2 Epigrammata Graeca ex Lapidibus Conlecta ed. Kaibel II, 303 & 344; IV, 533. 


54 ‘““RNOW THYSELF’’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


remember that he is mortal, and a certain Greek says of himself: 
pniey G&yav gpovéewv, Ovnta dé mavb’ dpdmv HrAPov ... 14 

The inscription on the tomb of Sardanapulus, according to Athenaeus, 

was in part as follows:* 


ev eldas btu Ovntds E—us cov Bvpdv dete 
TepTouevos Parinot’ Pavdvre gor obtis Svyots. 
Kal yap ya omodds eit, Nivov weyadns Baorrevoas’ 

To multiply instances further were tedious, but it is interesting 
to see that yv&& cavrov at length took on these two additional and 
interrelated meanings of knowing that we are human and knowing 
that we must die. That it should do so seems natural, for the idea 
that we are all subject to human limitations calls for only a slight 
extension of the idea of knowing our own limits in ability and achieve- 
ment as compared with other men. But the connection with yr 
gavtov was probably due rather to the influence of the Stoics in 
their claim that the maxim was the foundation of philosophy, and 
to their insistence to an unprecedented degree upon our cultivating 
an attitude of impassivity toward misfortune and sorrow and death, 
by reminding ourselves that these things are an inevitable part of 
the human lot. That this connotation was general and not merely 
literary is suggested by the mosaic floor of a small tomb found west 
of the Appian Way at Rome," bearing the figure of a skeleton with 
the words TNQOI ZATTON written in large, bold letters underneath. 
In studying the specific passages in the literature in which the apoph- 
thegm was given this force, we may pass by several extracts given by 
Stobaeus in his chapter on I'v@& Zavrov,'® inasmuch as, like the 
passages cited above, they do not contain the words of the maxim. 

13 Carmina Sepulchra Latina ed. Cholodniak, 435, 790, 1323, 1324. Antho- 
logia Latina II, 2, 1492. The word memini is regularly used in these inscriptions. 


However, no. 1319 ed. Cholodniak, reads: ‘‘ Cogitato te homin(em) esse et scito 
moriendu(m) ’st.” 

14 Kaibel V, 615. 

% Athenaeus VIII, 14. 

16 Epictetus I, 18; Seneca, Nat. Quaest. III, Praef. 15. 

17 This mosaic is in the Thermae Museum. See Helbig’s Guide Vol. 2, no. 
1044, p. 222 (Eng. trans.). See also Bull. dell. Inst. 1866, p. 164. For the 
use of skeletons to remind men of the transitoriness of human life see Petronius, 
Cena Trim. 35, and Lowe’s note (p. 28). Note also the Boscoreale Cups (Mau’s 
Pompeii p. 381-2, Eng. trans.) and the mosaic table top with skull and other 
symbols found at Pompeii (Mau p. 399). 

18 Flor. 21; 1.3.4. 


“KNOW THYSELF’”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 55 


The words are contained, however, in a pertinent fragment of Men- 
ander’s:'® ‘“‘When thou dost wish to know thyself—what thou art,” 
he says, “look at the tombs as thou dost pass along the street. In 
them lie the bones and the light dust of men—of kings, and tyrants, 
and wise men, and men greatly exalted by reason of their birth, 
or fame, or personal beauty. And then the time for enjoying these 
proved all too short. A common grave claimed them all, mortals 
that they were. Looking to these things, know thyself—what 
thou art.”’ 


Seneca in his Consolation to Marcia®® for the death of her son 
dwells upon the frail and mortal nature of man in an eloquent pas- 
sage. He says in part: ‘‘ Mortal you were born, and you have given 
birth to mortals... . Your son has died—that is, he has come 
down to that end toward which all whom you think happier than 
your offspring are hastening.” Hither comes with uneven step all 
that throng which contends in the forum, takes seat in the theatre, 
and prays in the temples; and those whom you cherish and those 
whom you despise are made equal in one common dust. In view 
of this, manifestly, was that Nosce Te ascribed to the Pythian oracle. 
What is man?’ A kind of fragile vessel, broken at the slightest 


toss. . . . Whatis man? A weak and delicate frame, unprotected, 
defenseless in himself, in need of help from without, subject to all 
the buffets of fortune. . . .”” And so he goes on. Plutarch writes 


19 Frag. 538, Koch III, p. 161: 


bray eidévar OéAns ceavrov boTts el, 
EuBreVor eis TA uvnual’ ws ddotTropets, 
évravd’ &veor’ 60T& TE Kai KovgNH KérLS 
avipay Baciéwy kai Tupdvvwy Kal cogav 
Kal weya gpovobyvtwy éri yéver kal xphuacw 
avtav re d0fn Kami KaArNE TwMaTwr. 
Kar’ obdév abrots tv 5’ érnpxecey xpovos. 
Kowdv Tov gonv écxov of ravTes Bporol. 
pos Tad’ épSv yivwoxe cavrov batts el. 
Cf. Ambrose Hex. VI, 8, 51. Respice in sepulchra hominum et vide quid ex te 
nisi cinis et ossa remanebunt, hoc est, ex corpore tuo. .... 
20, VI, XI, 1-3. 
*1 Cf. the oft-quoted remark of Anaxagoras upon hearing of the death of his 
son: joer Ovnrov yernoas. Plut. De Trang. An. c. 16 (474D). 
2 Cf. Euripides, frag. 418 Nauck: 
vyiyrwoke TaVOpHTrELa nd’ dTEpET PWS 
a&\yeu" Kakots yap ov od mpdcKeioar dv. 


56 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


in somewhat similar strain in his Consolation to A pollonius®® that 
he who resents his own death or the death of his children has evidently 
forgotten that man is mortal, and that his children are likewise 
mortal, lent him for a time. And he continues: “It is not possible 
for any one in his senses to be ignorant of the fact that man is a 
mortal creature and that he is born to die. . . . These two of the 
Delphic inscriptions are exceedingly necessary for life—the Iva 
gavrov and the Myédev ayav, for on these all else depends. And they 
are in accord and harmony with each other, and through the one 
the force of the other seems to be revealed. For in knowing oneself 
there is included the Mnéev &yay, and in the Mnéev &yav the yuwoxev 
éavrov. . . He who has these in mind as precepts of the Pythian 
oracle will be able to harmonize the experiences of life readily and 
to bear them successfully, while he looks to his own nature, and is 
neither exalted with undue arrogance in prosperity, nor dejected 
and given to wailing and lament through weakness of soul and the 
fear of death implanted in us.” 


Aelian tells the story™% of how after Philip had conquered the 
Athenians at Chaeronea, he commanded a slave to remind him early 
in the morning that he was human, and he would not leave the 
house nor let any one in to see him until the slave had shouted this 
to him three times. Alexander, moreover, despite his assumed 
divinity, is said to have remarked upon regaining his strength after 
a long illness that he was none the worse for it; “‘for iméuvynoe . . . 
Huds  vooos ui} meya gpovety as Ovynrods dvras.™ He is represented by 
Lucian,” however, as carrying much of his undue pride with him 
into the Lower World. When he first arrived there Philip greeted 
him with the words: “‘This time, Alexander, you cannot deny that 
you are my son; for you would not have died if you had been Am- 


3 ¢.28, 116B-c. 29. The Greek reads in part: 
ob yap éoTe ypevas txovtas avOpdrov ayvoeiv, Sti 6 GvOpwros EGdv éate Ovyrdv, od’ Sre 
yeyove els 7d GroBaveilv. . . . Ab’ tori r&v Aecdguxdy ypaupdtwv Tra wador’ dvay- 
kavétata mpds Tov Blovy, rd TvGOc cavrdév cai 76 Mndey &yav" & TobTwy yap Hprnrar Kal 
Tada ravta, Taita yap éorw adddows cvv@da Kal ohugwva, Kai dud Oarépov Eotxe 5ndod- 
cOa xara divauw. “Ev re yap TG ywmokew éavrdv repiexerat TO Mndev G&yayr, Kal tv robe 
TO YwooKew éauvTov. . . . 

* VIII, 15. Quoted in part by Stobaeus on I'v&M& Lavrov (Flor. 21, 6.) 

% Stob. Flor. 21:15. 

*® Dialogues of the Dead XIV. Lucian speaks of how prone men are to forget 
that they are mortal in Charon, 8 & 17; Menippus 12, and elsewhere, but he uses 
Gh cavrév in this connection only eve: 


““KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 57 


mon’s.” ‘Now that you have died,” he says farther on,’ “do you 
not suppose that there are many who will mock at your pretended 
divinity, when they see the corpse of the God lying before them? 
. Moreover, everything you did seems to fall short of being 
the work of a God.” ‘‘Men do not think that about me,” Alex- 
ander replied, “but they make me out a rival of Heracles and Dionysus. 
And what’s more I alone seized that Aonos,”* which neither of them 
succeeded in taking.” And then Philip concludes the Dialogue: 
“Do you see that you say that as if you really were the son of Ammon, 
comparing yourself with Heracles and Dionysus? Are you not 
ashamed of yourself, Alexander, and will you not learn to drop that 
bombast”? and yrwon ceavrov kal cvvion dn vexpos Gv ;’°° It is obvious 
that Lucian is using the phrase yrwon ceavroy here to mean ‘Know 
that you could not perform the feats of a God since you are a mere 
mortal, as the fact of your dying shows.’ This satire reminds us 
somewhat of the inscription that the Athenians placed on the inside 
of the Gate which Pompey was to pass through as he left their city 
after a short visit on his way to the East. His sacrificing to their 
Gods and his address to the people had evidently made a favorable 
impression upon them, and they wrote: 


’Ey’ dcov &v &vOpwrros oldas, él Tocodrov ef Beds.*! 


#7. Sec.. 5. 

28 A lofty rock in India. 

29 Cf. Stobaeus’ quotation from Bias: 7d 6¢ yvO% cavrov xphomov els vovIeclay 
Tov ddaldvew, oi brép Thy éavt&y Sivayw prvapodow (Flor. 21.14.) 

80 There is a suggestion of the maxim in this sense of ‘know that you are 
mortal’ in a frag. of Philemon (213, Koch). Some one is carrying on a conver- 
sation with a certain Kleon, who is apparently making excuses for his lack of 
effort to acquire a trade. If the youth says he has property, this may fail... 
If he says that his friends will take up a contribution for him, the speaker bids him: 

exou wt) AaBelvy wetpay girwr 

el 5¢ uw}, YuGoe. ceavTov ado pndey TAH oxiav. 
Koch removes a certain harshness of expression by reading obdé dvr’ add’ 
instead of &AXo yndety rd}; but Heimsoeth’s change of yrwoe ceavrdy to yvoins 
abro’s (See Herwerden Collectanea Critica p. 148) misses a.point which would 
not be lost upon a Greek audience. That his friends will not help Kleon is, of 
course, the main implication, but the effect of their failure will make him not 
only to become a mere shadow but to realize that that is all that he is. Cf. 
Soph. Ajax 125-6. . 

6p, yap Huas obdév dvTas GAO rAHv 

eliwr’, dcoiwep (Sper, } Kobenv oKrdv. 


31 Plutarch,:-Vit. Pomp. c. 27. On the outside of the gate they placed the verse: 
mpocedokGyev, Tporexuvodpuev, eiSouer, mpoTweuTomey. 


58 ““KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


The maxim with this force seems to be implied in a couplet of 
The Golden Sayings of the Pythagoreans:* 


und’ adoylorws cauTov Exe ep: undév Ove’ 
GAG yr pév ws Oaveey wempwrar dace. 


That this was one of the teachings of the sect is made evident by a 
fragment from the Pythagorean Hipparchus’ treatise on Tranquility, 
which reads in part: rabtray 6é é£ovre uadvoTa TavTwv aKpiB@s ériordamevor 
kal émeyvexotes éwutods, Oru evi Ovarol Kal capxwo. . . 3 Jewish and 
Christian writers also made much of the thought that man is human 
in his limitations, as certain passages from Philo Judaeus and Cle- 
ment of Alexandria attest. Clement says™ that yv@& cavrov shows 
many things, and he puts first in his enumeration kai dre Ovnrés ef 
kal drt GvOpwros éyevov. Philo concludes a discussion of the reasons 
for the rite of Circumcision by saying that it is a symbol 70d yvavai 
twa éavrov, and of discarding that terrible disease of the soul, ofnovw, 
for some men boast that they are able to produce the fairest being 
of all Creation—man—concealing the fact that God is in truth 
the Creator.* And again in connection with the passage in Exodus 
33; 18 ff., where Moses asks God to show him Himself, Philo interprets 
God’s answer to Moses as follows: “‘Neither the nature of man, 
nor even the entire Heavens and the Universe can adequately appre- 
hend me. Iv&t 6) cavrdv, and be not carried away with impulses 
and desires beyond thy power of realization, nor let the desire for 
the unattainable seize thee and carry thee aloft.’”** Such are the 
words of Philo’s God—a Being who, unlike the more intimate Gods 
of Greece, sits in wondrous majesty in a far-off world beyond all 
the conception and reach of men. 





For the general idea cf. The Auctor Ad Herennium IV, 52 (65). In illustrating a 
‘‘sermocinatio” he pictures an incident in which after some military success, 
a few men break into a certain house and demand the master of the household. 
His wife throws herself at the feet of the leader and begs him to have mercy. 
*« *Parce,’ inquit, ‘et per quae tibi dulcissima sunt in vita, miserere nostri. Noli 
exstinguere exstinctos; fer mansuete fortunam; nos quoque fuimus beati: nosce 
te esse hominem.’ ” 

2 Hierocles, The Golden Sayings of the Pythagoreans, p. 1, ed. Mullach. 
vv. 14-15. 

33 Stob. Flor. 108, 81. 

34 Strom. V, IV, 23. 

% De Sp. Leg. I (De Circumcis.) 10. 

3% De Sp. Leg. I (De Monarchia) 44. 


‘“eNOW THYSELF’’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 59 


Over against this age-long consciousness of our human and mortal 
nature, there came to be set the thought of the soul’s essentia) divin- 
ity and its immortality. The emphasis upon the divinity of the soul 
resulted in an attitude of contempt for the body which tended away 
from the Platonic ideal of the harmonious life toward the asceticism 
of the Neo-Platonist and the Christian monk. As for the soul’s 
immortality, while it was taught in a sense by Plato and Aristotle*’ 
and the Stoics, it remained for one of the Fathers of the Christian 
church to apply the Delphic maxim with the force ‘Know thou 
canst not be born to perish forever.’*8 


37 See Nic. Ethics X,7,1177b. ei 6% Oefov 6 vods pds tov GvOpwrov, Kal 6 Kara 
rovrov Bios Oeios rpds Tov avOpwmmwov Biov. ob xph St Kara Tols Tapawotivras avOpmrwa 
gpovety &vOpwrov byvTa ovdé OvnTra Tov Ovnrov, GAN’ E— Soov evbexerar ABavarifew Kal 
wavTa Tovety mpos TO (Hv KaTa TO KpaTioTOY Toy ev avT@. 


38 See p. 99. 


CHAPTER VIII 
TNQOI TATTON As Know Your Sour 


It is to Plato that we owe the first application of yr cavrév 
in the sense of knowing one’s own soul, for it is the purport of the 
words of Socrates to Phaedrus when he explains that he has no time 
for speculative theology, inasmuch as he has not yet succeeded in 
knowing himself, whether he is a beast more passionate and intricate 
than Typho, or a simpler and gentler creature.' This meaning was 
taken up by the author of the Alcibiades I, and forms the central 
theme of the Dialogue. We recall? that in the early part of the 
discussion Socrates seeks to bring Alcibiades to a recognition of 
how far his attainments fall short of his ambition, and that he uses 
the Delphic maxim in emphasizing the need of his taking his own 
measure. Alcibiades then asks how he may secure this requisite 
knowledge of himself, and the conversation continues until he is 
brought to a contradiction and humbly admits his ignorance. Soc- 
rates tells him that there is hope for him since he is young, and bids 
him go on answering questions if he wishes to improve, which leads 
to a distinction between improving, or caring for, our belongings and 
improving ourselves. To improve: ourselves we must know our- 
selves, and Socrates goes on to ask: zérepov oby 57 padlov rvyxdve Td 
yvavar éavrdov, Kal Tis Rv gaddos 6 TovTO avabels els Tov ev IIvO0t vewy, 7 
xarerdv te kal oxi wavtds;® Alcibiades replies that it often seems to 
him to be in every one’s power and again it seems very hard.* ‘Easy 
or not,”’ says Socrates, ‘‘we must have it,’ and he proceeds to dis- 
tinguish between the soul and the body, as he has before distinguished 
between the person and his possessions. The soul is shown to be the 
real self, and he affirms: puxyjv apa Huds Kereber yrwpioat 6 émirarrwv 
yvavat éavrév.© Then follows a little further consideration of the 
tripartite division, which we met in the Philebus’—the self, and the 
things of the self, and the things of the things of the self7—leading 


1See p. 41. 

2 See p. 18. 

3 129A, 

4See p. 78. 

5 130E. 

6 See pp. 16f. 

7 Phrasing in 133D-E. 


“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 61 


again to the placing of the emphasis upon the real self, or the soul.® 
‘‘How then can we know it (the art of caring for the soul) most 
clearly?” Socrates asks. “For if we know this, it seems we shall 
also know ourselves. And in the name of the Gods, if we are right 
in what we say, do we not get the meaning of the Delphic inscription 
of which we were just now reminded?” Alcibiades is puzzled, but 
Socrates tells him what he surmises the inscription to mean—that 
as the eye can see itself by looking into another eye, so the soul 
to know itself ““must look at soul, and especially at the part of it 
in which the virtue of soul exists, namely wisdom’? ... ‘This 
part of the soul is like to God, and any one looking to this and know- 
ing all that is divine, God and gpévyais, would in this way especially 
know himself. . . . Looking to God we would use Him as the 
fairest mirror, and looking also into the virtue of the human soul— 
in this way would we see and know ourselves best.’° This gives 
enough of the Dialogue for our purposes, perhaps, but the argument 
is carried further to show that only as a man knows his real self, 
will he know aright the things of the self, and the things of the things 
of the self. And if he does not know all this regarding himself, he 
cannot know it for others or be a competent leader of men. 


It is the soul, or the real self, then, which the maxim here bids 
us know. The antithesis between soul and body thus set up resulted 
in a tendency to use yv&6. cavrdév in emphasizing a knowledge of the 
soul irrespective of the body, though we sometimes find it applied to a 
knowledge of the relation between the two, and in a few instances 
it is treated as a very definite injunction to know one’s physical 
nature and its powers as an important preliminary to the fullest 
self-knowledge. This last is especially true of the use of the apoph- 
thegm by Philo Judaeus. He would have man remember the insigni- 
ficant elements of which he is made," but he would also have him 
know his physical frame and sensibilities before going on to the more 
important knowledge of the mind and soul and the apprehension of 


$ 132C. 

9 133B. 

10133C: eis tov Oedv &pa BrémovTes Exeivy KadNloTw evorTpw xpw@ucd’ ay Kal Tov 
av0pwrivey eis Thy Wuxis dper}y, kal ows dv udduora dpGuev Kal yeyvwokouer Huds abrobs. 

1 Sp. Leg. I, 263-4; De Somn. 1, 211-2. Cf. Tertullian, De Anima XVII— 
“ipsius dei providentiam . . qui cunctis operibus suis intellegendis, incolendis, 
dispensandis, fruendisque fallaces et mendaces dominos praefecerit sensus . . 
Sed enim Plato, ne quod testimonium sensibus signet, propterea et in Phaedro 
ex Socratis persona negat se cognoscere posse semetipsum. . . .” 


62 “ENOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


true Being. He introduces yv& cavrov with this purport in his 
symbolic interpretation of Charran and the life of Jacob in particular. 
Charran—the land into which Terah came when he left Chaldea,!” 
and into which Jacob went to live with his Uncle Laban, is the 
land of the external senses. The word means ‘“‘holes,’’® he says, 
and he bids the man who would examine himself go into the holes 
and caverns of the body, and investigate his eyes, ears, nostrils, and 
other organs of sense. ‘‘He who is still active in mortal life has 
need of these organs,” and so Rebekkah says to Jacob: yv@0 cavrév 
Kal T& GaUTOU pepy Ti TE ExacToV Kal mpds Ti yeyove Kal THs Evepyety TEPUKE 
Kal Tis 67a Oabpata Kwv kal vevxpooractay ddparos dopatws cite 6 Ev aol 
vods elite Tv cuuTwavtTwv. But Rebekkah would not have Jacob stay long 
in the country of the external senses. He was not to remain there 
all his life but “‘certain days,” while a long lifetime is stored up for 
him in the city of the Mind.” The command to Abraham likewise 
was to depart from his country and his kindred, the outward senses, 
which means to be alienated from them in one’s thought—to treat 
them as subjects, to learn to rule and not be ruled by them. Tévra 
Tov aidva yivwoxe ceavrov, Philo says, . . . orws yap av Te braxkovev 
kai ois émtratrew mpoojkev aicdjop.'® This control of the outward 
senses is followed by the mind’s beginning to know itself? and 
associating with the reflections of the intellect, and when the mind 
has come to understand itself accurately, it will probably somehow 
know God.” 


12 Mixed in with this exposition of the meaning of self-knowledge are exhor- 
tations to abandon the study of the physical sciences and to know oneself, even » 
as Terah in going from Chaldea abandoned the investigation of the universe 
for which the Chaldeans were famous to study himself at Charran. The dis- 
position which the Hebrews called Terah, he says, found concrete embodiment 
in Socrates, who grew old in the most careful consideration of yr@@: cavrév. De 
Somn. 1, 58. cf. Mig. Abraham 185. 

13 De Fuga et Inventione 45. 

4 De Somn. I, 55. 

18 De Fug. et In. 45. 

16 Sec. 46. 

17 De Somn. I, 46. 

18 Cf, Tertullian, De Anima XVII: “Plato, ne quod testimonium sensibus 
signet, propterea et in Phaedro ex Socratis persona negat se cognoscere posse 
semetipsum. .. .” 

19 De Mig. Abraham 7-8. 

20 Ibid. 13. 

1 Thid. 195. pabow axpiB&s éavrdv eloerar taxa mov kal Gedv. . . . 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 63 


Porphyry in an extract from his work on T'v&&t Zavrov refers to 
Plato’s Philebus and says, among other things, that to know oneself 
altogether probably includes judas cal ta juerepa Kal Ta TV tuerepwr. 
“Plato,” he says, ‘‘ was zealous to know himself in every way, that the 
immortal man within might be known and the outer portrait might 
not be unknown, and that the difference between them might be 
distinguishable. For the perfect vods of which each of us is a likeness 
distinguishes the inner self, where the real man dwells, and the 
outer image is distinguishable by the things of the body and one’s 
possessions. The powers of these also we ought to know and con- 
sider how far they extend... .”” The Emperor Julian likewise 
says that yy cavrov means a knowledge of the body, for “Socrates 
and many others,” he says, “thought 76 éavrdv yravar to be this— 
TO pabety axpiB&s ti ev arrodoréov WuxF, Ti 5é cwparc.’”? and earlier in 
the same chapter he says:* “‘ He who knows himself will know about 
the soul and he will know about the body also. . . . And coming 
back to the first beginning of the body, he will consider whether it 
is simple or composite; and then as he goes forward he will reflect 
about its harmony, and how it is affected, and about its powers and, 
in a word, about everything which it needs for its continuance.”’ 

The above passages from Porphyry and Julian are patently 
mere enlargements of the ra éavrod theme of Plato’s tripartite division, 
and Philo very likely had it in mind aJso. There is a further instance 
of self-knowledge as applied to the body in Nemesius’ work on The 
Nature of Man,” where he says that the Tree of Knowledge in the 
Garden of Eden gave a knowledge of one’s nature, and makes it 
clear that the self-knowledge which it gave was a consciousness of 
one’s bodily needs.* He refers to the Hebrews the statement that 
man in the beginning was neither mortal nor immortal; for if he 
had been mortal, God would not have pronounced death as the pen- 
alty of his disobedience, while if he had been immortal, he would 
not have needed food; and he gives as his own view that man in that 
state was equipped as a mortal, but was able to attain immortality 


22 Stob. Flor. 21:28. 

23 VI, 190B. 

4 183B-C. 

% 1, 16. 

% Cf. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith II, 11. 7d pe 
EdXov Tis yuwoews, aroTepay tiva, Kal doxiuny, Kal yuuvacvoy THs TOD avOpwmov brakons 
kai wapaxons. Awd kai EdNov TOU ywwoKew Kaddv Kal Tovnpdy KéxXnTaL, H STL Sbvayy 
é5ld0u yrwotikhy Tots weTadayBavovor Tijs oixelas plows. 


64 ‘““kNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


through progress. At length, after explaining that plants in those 
days before they had been touched had a very strong power, and that 
there was a fruit which gave knowledge of one’s own nature, he goes 
on to say: “God did not want man to know his own nature before 
he attained perfection, that he might not know that he was in want 
of many things, and come to care for his bodily needs, abandoning 
all forethought for the soul. For this reason God sought to prevent 
his taking of the Fruit of Knowledge. But giving no heed and 
yvovs éavrov man fell away from perfection, and became the prey 
of his physical need; at any rate he straightway sought a covering, 
for Moses says he knew that he was naked.” 


Tv&6. cavrov was sometimes used, moreover, as an injunction to 
know the relation between body and soul, and of this use we have a 
very good instance in Plutarch’s refutation of Colotes, an Epicurean 
who had published a book entitled ‘‘ According to the Opinions of 
the Other Philosophers it is not Possible even to Live.’’ He had 
evidently scoffed at Socrates for seeking to know what man is, and 
Plutarch says that Socrates was not a fool for searching into him- 
self, but those who undertake to investigate other knowledge first are 
foolish, since the knowledge of self is so necessary and so hard to 
find.2® But let us ask Colotes, he says, how it is that a man cannot 
continue living when he happens to reason with himself in this — 
way: “‘Come, what is this that I happen to be? Am I made up of 
soul and body mixed, or does the soul use the body as a horseman 
uses a horse, without the two being a mixture of horse and man? 
Or are we each most authoritative in that part of the soul with 
which we think and reason and act, and are all the other parts of 
the soul and body instruments of this power? Or is there no essence 
of the soul at all, but is the body itself a mixture, with the power of 
knowing and living? . . . These are those dreadful and perplexing 
questions in the Phaedrus where Socrates thinks he ought to consider 
whether he is a monster more intricate and passionate than Typho, 
or whether he shares in a certain divine and less monstrous destiny. ’’?® 

Cicero echoes the main point of the Alcibiades I in his Tusculan 
Disputations® in saying that ‘‘Nosce te” means “Nosce animum’ 


27 Ad. Colotem c.1. epi rod bri xara Ta T&v GrArAwy _girocdguv Sébypara ovde 
fav eorw. 

8c, 20, 1118F. 

3c. 21. 

i Oe 9 a 


‘KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 65 


tuum,” but he indicates the relation of the soul to the body when 
he adds: “Nam corpus quidem quasi vas est aut aliquod animi 
receptaculum.”’ Porphyry in his: Letter to Marcella expresses this 
same conception under a different figure.*! ‘The divine cries aloud 
in the pure region of thy mind,” he writes, “ ‘unless thou dost keep 
thy body joined to thee only as the outer membrane is joined to the 
child in the womb, and as the sheath is joined to the sprouting grain, 
thou wilt not know thyself.’ Nor does any one know himself who 
does not so think.” So in an extract on the different classes of 
virtues, Porphyry says that the very foundation and under-pinning, 
as it were, of Kd@apors is for the soul to know itself existent in another 
substance and bound together with a different essence.” 


One of the ways by which Socrates in the Alcibiades I led up to 
the thought that yv@# cavrov means ‘Know your soul’ was by 
showing first that man and the soul are one— Wux7 éoriw avOpwros®@— 
and this was probably the starting-point of the idea that yv&6. cavrév 
means to know man. So the title which came to be attached to 
the dialogue read: AdxiBiddns Meitwr, 4 epl AvOpwrov Picews;* and 
Plutarch says regarding Socrates’ attempt to know what man is® 
that yr. cavrév gave to Socrates the beginning of his perplexity 
and investigation, according to Aristotle, and that if man is that 
which is made up of both soul and body, as the Epicureans claim, 
he who seeks the nature of soul seeks the nature of man. The 
next step in the process of extending yv&& cavrév along this line is 
shown clearly in a statement of Porphyry’s to the effect that some 
people assert that the inscription urges us to know man, and since 
man is a small universe,®* the command means nothing other than to 


31 Letter to Marcella, 32: ¢ ph To cya ow cor cvvnpricbar gurakes ws Tots EuBpbors 
Kvogopoupevots TO x6piov Kai TG citw BracTravovte THY Kahaunr, ob yrooyn ceavTHv’ obdé yap 
&Ados Sorts 7} oVTW So~ater Eyvw EauTor. 

82 Stob. Flor. I, 88. See page 74. 

33 130C. 

34 Proclus In Alc. I, vol. II, p. 3 ed. Creuzer. 

3 Ad. Colotem 20: 76 yv&6t cavrov’ 6 64 Kal Dwxpare a&roplas kal (nrhoews Tabrns 
apxiy évéduxer, ws Apiororédns év Tots TlAatwrixots elpnxe . . . el yap Td & duorr, 
ws akiotow abrol, capuaros Towvde kai Wuxijs, GvOpwrds eoTiw, 6 SnTav Wuxijs gbow, 
avOpmrov (nTet plow ex THs Kupwwrépas apxijs. 

3% Cf. Manilius Astronomica IV, 893-5: 

‘Quid mirum, noscere mundum 
Si possunt homines, quibus est et mundus in ipsis, 
Exemplumque dei quisque est in imagine parva?” 


66 ““KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


be a philosopher.*’ Proclus says in his Commentary on Alcibiades I 
arn Totvuy toTw Kal ygirocogias apxy Kal THs TldAatwvos didackaNias, 4 
éavrav yva@ous*® and he says further that Iamblichus gave the Alci- 
biades I the first place in the ten dialogues in which he thought the 
entire philosophy of Plato was contained.*® This extension Of 
yvG0. cavtov, so explicitly stated by the Neo-Platonists, goes back 
to the Stoics, who made it not only the beginning of philosophy, 
but to use Julian’s phrase, the very sum and substance thereof— 
76 Tv@6t cavrov Kepadarov Tierra girooogias.© To Stoic and and Neo- 
Platonist alike the end of self-knowledge, like the end of philosophy 
was happiness,“ though that happiness was attained in somewhat 
different ways by the two schools. 


_ It is in the writings of Cicero that we find the fullest expression 
of the tendency of the Stoics to centre all their philosophy around 
v0. cavrov, though it is made evident here and there among other 
writers. Philostratus, for instance, tells the story” of how Apollonius 
of Tyana went to visit some Indian Sages who told him to ask them 
whatever he wished since they knew all things. Accordingly Apol- 
lonius asked them if they knew themselves, thinking that like 
the Greeks, they would consider knowing oneself hard; but Iarchus, 
their leader, contrary to his expectation, said, “We know all 
things, éreidy mpwrovs éavrods yuyywoxouev. For no one of us ap- 
proaches this philosophy without first knowing himself.’ Apol- 
lonius agreed with this reasoning, because he had been convinced 
of its truth in his own case also, and he asked them further what 


87 Stob. Flor. 21:27. 
88 Vol. I, p. 5 Creuzer. 
vaya on & 
40 Or. VI, 185D. 
41 Stob. Flor. 21:27: 4 65 oovdy ris mpds TO yrOvar éavrdv rapakedeboews els 
Tevéiww THS GAnOuw7s ebdaovias daoreiverat. 
"A poll. Ty. III, 18. ‘ 
“8 Apropos of this idea a late epigram in the Palatine Anthology is of interest 
(XI, 349): 
eiwé wéPe od perpels Koopov Kal meipatra yains 
é& éXlyns yains cGua gépwr ddNiyov. 
Lavrov apiOunoov mpdrepov Kal yvOb. veavTov 
kai té7’ apiunoeas yatay arepecinv. 
ei 6’ d6Xiyor wnddv Tod cdparos ob KarapiOpyets 
Tas dbvaca yrava Tov GpéTpwv TA METPA; 


“NOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 67 


they considered themselves to be. ‘‘Gods,” Iarchus replied, and 
when Apollonius asked him why, he said: ‘‘Because we are good 
men.” 


Epictetus uses language suggestive of the maxim in exhorting 
us to recognize our divine nature and to live in the dignity of the 
consciousness that we are gods;* and in another passage* he intro- 
duces yv&@ cavrov in emphasizing the thought that the soul is the 
part of the self which most needs attention. He says in his chapter 
on Finery in Dress that if he tries to remind those who come to his 
school that it is character which makes beautiful, whatever the out- 
ward appearance, and tells them of their faults, they may be angry* 
and leave the school, or at any rate they may not heed his advice. 
But what about Apollo? ‘Why was the yv@& cavréy inscribed in 
public view when no one heeds it?’’*’ Neither did men listen to 
Socrates in his tireless efforts to win them to virtue. And so Epictetus 
will say to youth: ‘Know first what thou art and thus array thy- 
self. Thou art a human being—that is, thou art a mortal creature, 
knowing how to use thine imagination with reason.... Thy 
Reason is peculiarly thine. This do thou adorn and beautify.’’® 
Seneca says: ‘“‘Tunc demum intelleges quid faciendum tibi, quid 
vitandum sit cum didiceris quid naturae tuae debeas’’;*® and Julian 
expresses this thought of Seneca’s when in saying that yv&O cavrov 
was the end and aim of the Stoic philosophy, he explains that they 
made their aim professedly to live in accord with Nature, which it 
is not possible for a man to attain who does not know of what sort 
his own nature is.*? 

When we turn back to Cicero, we find this tendency of the Stoics 
to make vf cavrov embrace all their philosophy in various parts 
of his works. In his De Finibus he says:! ‘‘Intrandum .. . est 
in rerum naturam et penitus, quid ea postulet, providendum; aliter 


“TT, 8, 10-13. 

* Til, I. 

“Cf. If, 14, 18-20, where he says to Naso a otv oo Seltw... 
ore ti Oeds Eat oldas obre Ti GVOpwros ore Ti dyad oltre Ti Kaxdv, Kai TO wey Tov 
&dAwy tows avexrov, 67. 6” abtos cavrov ayvoets, THs Sivaca dvacxéoOar wou Kal brooxeiv 
Tov éheyxov Kal Tapapetvar ; 

47 Sec. 18. See p. 10, n. 82 

48 Sec. 24-25. 

49 Ep. XX, 4, 3. 

50 VI, 185D, 186A. 

51, 44, 


68 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITFRATURE 


enim nosmet ipsos nosse non possumus. . . Iubet igitur nos 
Pythius Apollo noscere nosmet ipsos. Cognitio autem haec est una 
nostri, ut vim corporis animique norimus sequamurque eam vitam 
quae rebus iis perfruatur.’®? He says also in the same work that 
without a knowledge of natural philosophy no one can see the force 
of those old precepts of the Wise Men, which bid us “‘tempori parere 
et sequi deum et se noscere et nihil nimis.’”** In his Tusculan Dis- 
putations’ he repeats again the idea that the philosopher is con- 
cerned with investigating Nature, and says: “‘Haec tractanti 


52 Cf. Choricius of Gaza, Epitaphius for Procopius pp. 15-16, Boissonade. 
He tells the story of Apollo’s reply to Croesus’ question as to how he could pass 
his life happily, and then adds: «i roivuy 6 wey ywods éavrdv ebdaivwr, Kara Thy ’Amdd- 
Awvos Pigov, ywaoke SE Tis EavTor, Sti Gv 6 Oeds Todkee oTEPywr, ebdaivoves Apa yernoccbe 
py Svoxepaivorvtres TO Tapov. 

STITT, 73. 

¥, 70. 

55 Cf. Ambrose Hex. VI, II, 3: “Nunc age, naturas bestiarum dicamus, et 
homimis generationem. Audio enim iamdudum aliquos insusurrare dicentes 
‘Quam diu aliena discimus et nostra nescimus? Quamdiu de reliquis animantibus 
docemur scientiam, et nosmetipsos ignoramus? [Illud dicat quod mihi prosit, 
unde me ipsam noverim’. . . . Sed ordo servandus est quem Scriptura con- 
texuit; simul quia non possumus plenius nos cognoscere, nisi prius quae sit omnium 
natura animantium cognoverimus.” 

One of Epictetus’ fragments, however, (Stob. Flor. 80:14 ed. Gaisford) 
presents something of a puzzle in this connection. In apparent contradiction 
of the usual Stoic emphasis upon the importance of a knowledge of the Universe, 
he protests against absorption in these speculative problems, and asks if it is not 
enough to learn the essence of good and evil and the measure of the desires and 
aversions, and so forth, and let the things above us go. And he asks: yp? 7i oty 
kal 76 & Aedgois mapayye\ua mapéAxov éorl 7d yuO0. cavrdv ... Tis ov  Sbvams 
abrov ; el xopevry Tis TapHnyyedAe TA yv@var éavtdv obk Gv & TH WpooTrdke mpoceixe TE 
éristpagqva. The fragment ends at this point in certain MSS., but in others 
the idea that a xopevrfs must work in harmony with the rest of the chorus is 
followed up and the thought that man is a social being is emphasized. Where- 
upon the question is raised as to whether one ought not to know what Nature 
is and how she manages the Universe. 

The contradictions involved in this fragment as it stands are not easily 
explicable. It is probable, however, that the last sentence is not by Epictetus, 
but rather crept into certain of the MSS. from the pen of some one who took 
exception to his denouncement of the study of physical phenomena. Therein 
lies a difficulty for us as well. It may be that if we had the entire discourse 
instead of an extract, we should find either that Epictetus is quoting from some 
dissenter to Stoic tenets, or that he himself is not so much protesting against 
all knowledge of physical philosophy as insisting, like Socrates of old, upon the 
paramount value of ethical studies. I'v&6: cavrév here obviously means ‘Give 


““RNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 69 


animo et noctes et dies cogitanti existit illa a deo Delphis praecepta 
cognitio, ut ipsa se mens agnoscat coniunctamque cum divina mente 
se sentiat, e quo insatiabili gaudio compleatur.”’ But it is in his 
De Legibus that Cicero gives his fullest exposition of Stoic tenets 
in their relation to yv& cavrdv. ‘For Philosophy alone teaches 
us,” he says, “not only other things, but also that which is most 
difficult—ut nosmet ipsos nosceremus—; and so great is the force 
and thought of this precept that it is attributed not to some man 
but to the Delphic God. For he who knows himself will perceive 
first of all that he possesses something divine, and he will think of 
his spirit within him as something consecrated like a sacred image, 
and he will always do and think something worthy of so great a 
gift from the gods. And when he has perceived himself and tested 
himself fully, he will know with what natural equipment he came into 
life, and what means he has for obtaining and acquiring Philosophy, 
inasmuch as he will conceive first of the knowledge of all things 
shadowed as it were in his mind and soul; and with this made clear, 
he will see that under the leadership of Philosophy he will be a good 
man, and for that very reason, happy. . . . And when he has 
observed the sky, and the earth, and the seas, and the nature of all 
things, and whence these were generated, whither they return, 
when and in what way they meet their end, what in them is mortal 
and perishable, what divine and eternal; and when he shall see 
himself regulating and almost ruling them, and shall comprehend 
that he is not surrounded by the walls of some one place, but shall 
recognize himself as a citizen of the whole universe as if it were one 
city—in this splendid conception of things and in this grasp of a 
knowledge of Nature, ye Immortal Gods, how he will know himself! 
In view of the precept which the Pythian gave, how he will condemn, 
how he will despise, how he will count as naught those things which 
are commonly called most important! And all these (interests of 
philosophy) he will intrench by a hedge as it were, through his 
method of discussion, his ability to judge of true and false, and a 





attention to yourself, your desires and aversions, inclinations, &c, and its exten- 
sion to include ‘Know your place in society’ is interesting, if only a comment 
by some unknown critic. 

Various emendations have been suggested for the text of the last sentence 
of the above. We have followed Gaisford, who keeps to the MSS. save for the 
change of 76 émiorpagiiva to 7 ero rpagivat. 


70 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 

certain skill in knowing what follows each thing and what is opposite 
to each. And when he perceives that he has been born for civil 
society, he will not only think that he ought to use that careful rea- 
soning for himself, but also that he ought to diffuse more widely the 
power of speech by which he rules peoples, establishes laws, chastises 
the wicked, gives recognition to the Good, praises illustrious men, gives 
forth precepts of safety and praise suited for the persuading of his 
fellow-citizens, exhorts to glory, recalls from disgrace, consoles the 
afflicted, and records the deeds and counsels of the brave and wise, 
along with the ignominy of the wicked, in eternal monuments. These 
are the powers, many and great as they are, which those who wish 
to know themselves see to be in man; and the parent and nurse 
of these is Philosophy.’ 


We have seen, then, how from the idea that yv&& cavrdév bids 
us know our soul, the command came to be applied not only to the 
relation of the soul to the body in the case of the individual, but to 
the knowledge of man in general and the pursuit of philosophy, 
including the main tenets of the Stoics. The Neo-Platonists con- 
strued the God’s command to mean a knowledge of the psychological 
analysis of the soul into its various faculties and functions, while 
they brought its phraseology into connection with the idea of self- 
consciousness, and applied it to certain of the soul’s activities. 
Plotinus says in his first chapter on the Difficulties about the Soul that 
in investigating these difficulties we would obey the command of 
the God which bids us know ourselves;*’ and again in speaking of the 
One or the Good and of how it transcends all predications of know- 
ledge, he says:°® ézel cal 76 yv@Ou cavrdv déyera TovToLs of dud 7d TAHOOS 
éauvT@v Epyov Exovor diapiOuetv éavtovs kal pabetv, 60a Kal rota dvres ov 
ravra tcacw F ovdév, od’ bre Gpxer ovde Kata TLabroi. Porphyry says in 
his work on 'v&6. Zavrév that knowing oneself is likely to have reference 
to the necessity of knowing the soul and the vois.5® And when 


56 De Legibus I, 58-62. Ed. Orellius. 

57 Fn. TV, III, 1: weBducha 6¢ Gv xai 7G rod Oeod wapaxedNebopare abrods ywwoKev 
Tapaxehevomev@ mepl TobTov Thy eéracw rowbyevot. LIamblichus says in his Letter 
to Sopater on Dialectic (Stob. Flor. 81, 18): xal ray cuppeucyperny btdcKxep Tod ddyou 
mpos Ta Sa Tpaypyata ayarGye abriy bé rhv Eavtod yvSow Tov Adyou, Kad’ Hv a—eueEvos 
Tav &A\wv TH wepl adrod émioTHuny KaTecTHIAaTO GeuvoTarny obcay Kal TimwTaTHY, ws 
Maptupe Kal 76 & Iv00t ypdupa, drrodoxiacoue ws ardBXnTOv. 

58 Fn. VI, VIII, 41 (cf. En. V, III, 10 & 13). 

59 Stob. Flor. 21:28. See p. 76. 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 71 


Julian says in speaking of the apophthegm that he who knows him- 
self will know about his soul, and he will know about his body, 
he adds: “And this alone is not enough—to understand that 
man is soul using a body, but he will go on to the essence of the 
soul itself, and then he will trace out its faculties.’ This psycho- 
logical analysis of the soul found its beginning and inspiration in 
Plato, and was carried on in greater detail by Aristotle in his Meta- 
physics and De Anima, but it received a new impetus through the 
work of Plotinus and thereby became the very basis of Neo-Platonism. 


Plotinus regarded the soul as a mean™ between the world of sense 
and the higher intelligence, Nos, and in the particular chapter™ 
in which he discusses self-knowledge he speaks of the soul as contain- 
ing broadly the faculty of sense perception, the faculty by which 
judgments are formed in relation to sense impressions, designated 
as dianoetic, and pure reason or intelligence, which he calls the 
vods in the soul, because of its likeness to the higher Nojs.** The 
faculty of sense perception aside, Plotinus attributes self-knowledge 
to these faculties of the soul proper and to the Nois, though he con- 
ceives of an ultimate Reality beyond the Nots—the Good or the 
One—of which neither self-knowledge nor anything else can be 
predicated. The self-knowledge of the dianoetic part of the soul 
consists in knowing that it is dianoetic—that it receives the know- 
ledge of external things and judges with the standards in itself 
which it has trom Nods, knowing that it is second after Nods and an 
image of Nods, with all things written in itself.6 The self-knowledge 
of the vods in the soul and of the Higher Nojs is an intellectual self- 
knowledge—the self-consciousness of the individual and of the 


60 VI, 183 B. Cf. Proclus, Im Alc. I, vol. I, p. 278 Creuzer. 

61 JIT, 9, 432 a.29 ff. 

6 Fn. V, Ill, 3. Cf. Julian VI, 184A: ra re yap Oeta bia ris evobons Hpi 
Geias pepiios Ta TAOvnTa dia THs OvnToedods polpas mpdos TovTOLs E~yn Ta meTAkd TOD (Gov 
elvar Tov GvOpwrov. TO pev Kal’ Exactov Ovnrov, TS wari 5é GBavarov. .. . 

@ En. V; i. 

” fa: V, UHI, 2. 

6 Fn. VI, VII, 41. See also En. VI, IX, 6: of5 vénois . . . mpd yap Kuw7- 


gews Kal mpd vonoews’ Ti yap Kal vonoa; [fA] éavrdv. rpd vohtews, Tolvwy ayvodv errat, 
Kal vonsews denoerat, va yv@ éavrov 6 abprapkns éavT@. 


® Fn. V, III, 4. 


72 ‘““KNOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


General Mind—the turning of the mind in upon itself*’ until thinker 
and thought are one.*®® 


For the history of the connection of this idea of self-consciousness 
with the maxim we need to go back to Plato’s Charmides. When 
Critias had given out yv&& cavrév as a definition of cwypocivn and 
had made a fanciful attempt to show the connection between the 
two,®® Socrates took up the theme of self-knowledge not from a 
personal but from an epistemological point of view. He argued 
that the knowledge of self must be unlike other sciences, for its object 
is within itself, while the object of any other science is without. 
Critias replied that self-knowledge differs from other sciences in 
that it includes a knowledge of itself and other knowledge as well; 
and this, Socrates adds, would involve a knowledge of the absence 
of knowledge also.’° But this science which is not a science of any 
one subject, but a science of itself and of other sciences and the 
absence of sciences, is shown not to exist in the realm of sense, or 
of wish, or desire, and so forth, and Socrates says that they’ have 
need of some great man to determine whether it exists at all.” 
Granted that it does exist, the argument runs, he who has it will 
know himself; but the argument closes without proving the exis- 
tence or practical advantage of such a science. 

This puzzle as to whether if a thing knows itself it does not 
combine in itself the incompatible qualities of subject and object, 
of knower and known, of thinker and thought, is raised in the Par- 


87 The close connection between émiorpévew and yv&h cavréy appears in many 
passages. For instance, Proclus In Alc. I, p. 277, Creuzer: 45 ot éavrdv d&pxerar 
ywaokew 6 ’AdxiBiddns rpdtrepov EauTdv mpo8addAovTa Tos Adyous, viv ab Kal rodrTo ywH- 
oxovTa, Ste eis éavrov értotpége Kal Thy éavrod évépyeray Kal Thy EavTod yoGouw YyiyvooKwv 
&y yiverac mpds 76 yrwordy kai airds 6 Tpémos Tis éxtoTpoyhs év éEavT@ mepiaye Tip 
yuxip eis tiv THs obcias Oewpiav. Olympiodorus In Alc. I, vol. II, p. 10 Creuzer: 
et yap TobTw Tepi TOD yvGvas éavrov SradayBave, dia 5é TOD ErroTpe—ev pds EavTOs “yiWw- 
oxopev éavrobs. Proclus, Inst. Theol. LX XXIII: rév 76 éavrod yrworixdv, rpds éavTd 
wavTn émiotpentixéy éoTw. Stic pew yap TH e&vepyeia mpds éavTd EmtoTpeye, ywaokov 
éavrd, dfjdov" Evy yap éort 76 Ywaokor, Kal 76 Ywwoxduerov. And CLXXXVI: yx 

. & yap ywwoke tavriy, wav 5é 76 éavtd Ywokov rpds éavTod émioTpeverat. 

68 Cf. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists, p. 54: ‘The highest mode of eublective 
life, next to the complete unification in which even thought disappears, is intel- 
lectual self-knowledge. Here the knower is identical with the known.” 

69 164D-165B. See pp. 33-34. 

70 166E. 

7 169A, 

72 169E. 


“KNOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 73 


menides in connection with the suggestion that the Ideas may be 
thoughts,” and it is discussed more at length in Aristotle’s De 
Anima. When we come to Plotinus, we find an insistence upon 
the identity of vods with vonra in his chapter on Gnostic Hypostases. 
“Toes the vois,’’ he asks, ‘“‘behold one part of itself with another 
part?” and he proceeds to argue that this division of voids is absurd, 
by raising questions as to how and by whom the division is to be 
made; then he continues: ef7a mas éavTdv yrwoerar 6 Dewpav & TG 
Oewpoupevy Takas éavTov KaTa TO Oewpetv; ob yap jv ev TS Oewpovpery 7d 
Oewpeiy ; } yvovs éavrov otw Oewpobpevov, add’ ov DewpotvTa, vonoer Wate 
od méavra ovdé bdOV yvwoeTar éauTOV . . . } TpocOnce wap’ avTod kal 
tov TeewpnKora, iva TédNeLov addy 7} vevonxws.” If the perceiver pos- 
sesses the things perceived, he goes on to say, he does not see them 
through dividing himself, but he has beheld and possessed them 
prior to the division of himself; and if this be the case, det 77)v Bewpiay 
ravrov elvar TO OewpyntG, Kal tov vovv tairdov eivar TH vontg@ . . &Y Apa 
ow vods Kal TO vonrov kal 76 Ov. . . . Farther on he argues that vonots 
and vonrév are the same, since voyrdv, like vonois, is an évepyela, 
and so all will be one—vois, vénors and 76 vonrév. This oneness of 
voos with vonrév, and of both with vénas, is reiterated elsewhere 
in Plotinus”® and in other Neo-Platonist writings, particularly in 
Proclus’ Institituo Theologia.”” In this sense of the identity of 
thinker with thought, or knower with known, the vos in the soul 
may be said to know itself, and self-knowledge becomes synonymous 
with self-consciousness. ‘‘It represents with Plotinus,” as Brett 
has said in his History of Psychology, “‘an intermediary stage between 
consciousness of objects and the final unity which has no distinction 
of subject and object.”78 Or as Plotinus himself puts it, “the 
self-knowledge of the vots of the soul consists in knowing itself no 


ES2C. 

74 For Aristotle’s discussion of the problem see article by Shorey on the De 
Anima in A. J. P. XXII, pp. 154 ff. 

% En. V, III, 5. 

7% See En. III, IX, 1 etrep pdvor otrws bv 7d wey vonrov, Td Se voodv. & En. VI, 
VII, 41 e 5& radrdv vods, vonots, vonrév, ravrn &y yerdpeva apane abta & adrois. 

77 CLXVII-CLXIX. Note esp. the following: wavrws G&pa 7d mpd adrod 
yweokwv yveoerar kal éavrdv, ei ody Tis Eote vods vonTrds, éxelvos EavTov eldas, Kal TOV 
vontov olde, vontds dv, 6 éatiwv odros (CLXVII); and e& yap éavrdv voet, kal rabrd 
vods kal vonrov. kal vénots TS vG Tabrd Kal TS vonrG (CLXIX). Cf. Proclus In Tim. 75 
A-B, & 267D. 

OP. 312. 


74 “NOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


longer as man, but as having become altogether different in hastening 
to unite itself with the higher alone, and drawing on the better part 
of the soul, which alone is able to be winged toward intelligence, 
that it may deposit there in the better part of the soul what it has 
seen.”’7® The perfect self-consciousness of the Higher Nojs, that 
is, of the General Mind of which the individual mind is but a part, 
naturally follows, and of this too Plotinus uses phraseology sug- 
gestive of the maxim when he speaks of it as 6 vols . . . 6 TéNeEvos 


Kal was, 6 yuyvwoKwy mpwrws éauvTov. . . 59 


The Neo-Platonist Commentators on the Alcibiades I, Proclus 
and Olympiodorus, brought yv&& cavrév into relation with the 
activities by which the soul abstracts itself from the realm of sense, 
and gives itself to pure speculative thought and contemplation— 
activities designated as xafaprixdv and Oewpnridy respectively.* 
With regard to the Cathartic activity, Proclus asks:” “From what 
point should we properly begin the purification and perfection of 
ourselves other than with the command which the God at Delphi 
gave us? For as an inscription presents itself to those who are 
about to enter the precinct at Eleusis, forbidding the uninitiated to 
go within, so surely the yv@@ cavrév on the temple front at Delphi 
showed, I fancy, the way of approach to the divine, and the most 
effectual road to purification. It says virtually in plain terms to— 
those who can understand, that he who knows himself beginning 
at the hearth* is able to be united with God, the revealer and guide 
of universal truth and of the purified life.”” The actual way in which 
yvab. cavréy aids in purification is indicated by Porphyry when he 
says that the very foundation of xa@apots is 7d yrOvar éavtdov Puxny dvTa 
& &ddorpiw 7S mpdyuare Kal érepovolw cvvdedevevov.4 Knowing oneself 
Gewpntixas is the phrase the Neo-Platonists used to characterize 


79 En. V, III, 4. 
80 En. V, III, 8. 
81 Vol. II, pp. 4-5, Creuzer. They also brought yr: cavrév into relation 
_with the ethical faculty, designated as wodurixév. Olympiodorus tells us that 
Damascius said that Socrates wanted Alcibiades to know himself odcrixés, 
reasoning from the definition of man in the dialogue as a Wuxyv AoyexHy opyare 
Kexpnuévny TS chpare (Alc. I, 130A). “The political soul alone,” he reasoned, 
dpyavy Kéxpntat TS odpare Seduevos ore Sri Ovuod, ws brép warplios, AAG Kal erPupias 
Tov ebroufjoat Tods wodiras (vol. II, p. 4, Creuzer. See note 9 of same.). 

8 Vol. I, p. 5. 

8 yundels ay’ éorias was a phrase used in a solemn initiation at Eleusis. 

84 Stob. Flor. 1:88. See p. 65 


‘““RNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 75 


their application of the figure of the eye in the Alcibiades I. Olym- 
piodorus explains that in saying that the eye to see itself must look 
at another eye, and at the most important part thereof, Socrates 
meant that éed) 7d ey col abrd klvnrov dmerbydwoas Tats adbyous 
évepyelars évdods ceavTov amoBrere eis Eue, ToT’ EoTL THY ZwKpaTiKhy 
Yuxnv, Kal Tavrns pa eis TO TUXOV MEpos, GAN’ Eis TO AkpdTaToP, Kai Seu év 
éuol vodv Kal Oedv . . . dua dé Tod GPer Ev Eyol vod, Sti Kal Bewpnrikas.” 
The soul which knows itself Qewpn7ux&s is thus in a state of pure 
contemplation, and this is simply the activity of the reasoning faculty 
of the soul in its apprehension of Nods and God. These two activi- 
ties—the process of abstraction from the realm of Sense, and the 
act of pure contemplation, though separately defined, belong together, 
for the Cathartic activity is a necessary preliminary to the Theoretic 
state. Both are implied in the words of Julian when in saying 
that the end and beginning of philosophy are one—namely, to know 
oneself and be like the gods**—he goes on to add that the short-cut 
thereto is this—“‘one must stand completely out of himself and know 
that he is divine, and keep his own voids untiringly and unwaveringly 
fixed on divine and undefiled and pure thoughts, and he must dis- 
regard the body altogether. . . .”8’ So Macrobius in his Com- 
mentary on Scipio's Dream,®* after outlining Plotinus’ treatment 
of the Virtues, refers to the ‘‘e caelo descendit yv@O. ceavrév”’ of 
Juvenal and to the reply of the God to Croesus “If you know your- 
self, you will be happy,” and adds: “The one way for a man 
to know himself is to look back at the first beginnings of 
his origin and birth, and not seek himself without. For so the 
soul puts on her own virtues through the consciousness of her nobility, 
and with these she afterwards tears herself away from the body and 
is carried back whence she has descended, because she has not soiled 
herself in her bodily state nor been burdened with impurities—nor 
does she seem ever to have deserted the Heavens, which she has 
continued to possess by looking to them in her meditations.’’®* 


8 Vol. II, pp. 7-8, Creuzer. 

8 Or. VII, 225D. yravai re éavrov kai dgououbfvat Tots Oeots. 

87 226C-D. 4 civropuos 660s éorw airy. det yap abrov dOpdws exorivar éavrod xai 
yrevar bre Oetds éort, Kal Tov vodv péev Tov éavTod arpiTws Kal dueraKkwhTws ovvéxew &w 
Tots Oelots Kal axpdvrows Kai Kaapots vonuacw, ddvywpeiy 5é avTN TOD OwmaTos. .. . 

887, IX, 2-3. 

89 Cf. Hierocles, On the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans, p. 157: éred} xat 
pévot Tpds Tv Oewpiay T&v bvTws ayabav éreoTpagnoar, obs &kov Kal els 7d Oelov yéevos 
evypagew . . . ob yvovtes éavto’s drodbovrar THs Ovynrijs éurabetas. 


76 ‘*KNOW THYSELF’”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


The extent to which the higher part of the soul can exercise its 
theoretic activity in yielding itself up to the contemplation of Nods 
and God will determine the extent to which we may become like 
that which we contemplate, and the greater our likeness to the 
Higher Nots which knows itself perfectly, the more perfectly may 
we know ourselves in the psychic sense.*° For there is truth in the 
words of Critias in the Charmides:*' “If any one possesses that 
science of knowledge which knows itself, such a man would be like 
what he possesses, just as he who possesses swiftness is swift, and he 
who possesses beauty is beautiful, and he who possesses knowledge 
knows”; “and,” he adds defiantly, “drav 5€ 5) yrow abriy aidrijs 
Tis XN, Yeyvwokwv mov abrés éavrdv tore tora.” “I don’t dispute 
that,’ said Socrates, “that when any one possesses that which 
knows itself, he will know himself indeed.” The contemplation of 
pure knowledge which inherently knows itself until the soul becomes 
like it is, according to the Neo-Platonist Commentators, the thought 
of the passage in the Alcibiades I, in which Socrates says that if 
the soul is going to know itself, it must look at the region where 
cogia, the virtue of soul, resides, and further that he who looks to 
this and knows all that is divine—God and gpdvyois—would most 
of all know himself.* Olympiodorus renders this in the Neo-Pla- 
tonist terms, vos and God, and it is this which Porphyry means 
when he says of yO cavrév: “7d pev obv yeyvwoxev EavTov Thy avagopay 
éoxeyv Exew Eri TO yryvwoxev deiv Thy Pux}v Kal Tov vody, ws év TOUTH RudV 
ovovwpévwy.** According to Porphyry, too, the attainment of true 
happiness is furthered by the application of the maxim in this psychic 
sense—by the contemplation of the Good and the knowledge of 
true Being. 

To follow the abstract use of the phrase for self-knowledge through 
all the literature of the Neo-Platonists would carry us too far afield 


°° Cf. Plotinus En. V, III, 8, where he says that the soul is able to see Nois, 
which primarily knows itself, through being, as it were, an image—through 
being made like to it more accurately as far as a part of the soul can come into 
likeness with Nois. 

1 169E. 

*2133B-C. See Proclus In Alc. I, vol. I, p. 85, Creuzer: péon yap éore 9 
yvGots éautav ris Te THv Ociwy, yowoews kal Tijs eis TO EEw perobons Fwijs, 51d kai 4) avodos 
éxi ri Oeorépay evepyevay 51a Tabrns yiveras wéons Tis éavTav yvwoews. . . 

* Vol. II, p. 8, Creuzer. Cf. Plotinus, En. V, III, 7, where bs says that 
pure intellect perceives God. 

% Stob. Flor. 21, 28. See p. 70. 


“kNOW THYSELF’’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 77 


in the realm of metaphysics for the purposes of this study. Yet 
that it had primarily a connection with the yv@& cavrév of the Del- 
phic temple is made evident by the passages which we have cited, 
and by some others as well.*® The connection is not always as near 
and definite as in the instances before us, but it is perhaps not too 
much to assume that whenever a Greek scholar after Plato wrestled 
with the problems of the psychic life, he felt more or less vaguely 
with Plotinus that he was obeying the God’s command. 


% For instance, Damascius, Dubitationes et Solutiones F, 96, V, p. 156, ed. 
Ruelle: roAdocr} yap ard Tod yoworod } yvSous* a6 pev oby Tobrov rpityn Tis Eouxey elvat 

. Kara O& Thy éoxarny TO yeyvecxov éavTd Kal TO yvObt cavtdév. And Hermes Tris- 
megistus, Poemandres XIII, 22: voep&s éyvws ceavrov kai Tov waTépa Tov NuETEpO?. 


CHAPTER IX 
[TNQOI ZATTON Is DiFricutt. How ATTAINED? 


We recall that at one stage in the discussion in the Alcibiades I 
Socrates asks Alcibiades whether 176 yvOva éavrdv happens to be 
easy and to have been inscribed on the temple by some ordinary 
man, or something difficult and not within the power of everyone 
and Alcibiades replies: ’Eyol yer, & Dawxpares, woAdNdKes pev edoke tavrds 
eivar, wodAaKis 6€ Tayxaderov.t The youthful Euthydemus in Xeno- 
phon’s Memorabilia apparently had no thought of its being anything 
but easy, for when Socrates asked him if he paid any attention to the 
inscription when he saw it at Delphi, he answered promptly: Ma 
Ai’ ob bra... Kal yap 5) wavy rodrd ye gunv eidevar’ cxod\W yap 
dy &Xo 7 Hn, €t ye ud’ Euavtdv éyiyrwoxov.2 So Croesus, we remember, 
said that when Apollo told him that if he knew himself he would be 
happy, he thought that the easiest thing in the world.? And Galen 
even says of himself that when he was a lad he thought people praised 
the Pythian command to know oneself overmuch, for it did not 
seem to him a great injunction.* It is evident that to unthinking 
youth and the Lydian Croesus the words yv&ht cavrév might, for 
literary purposes at least, mean merely ‘know who you are,” 
but greater maturity of thought and experience brought men to a 
better realization of their profundity. That yah cavrév was 
difficult, however, was a new idea to the individual only as it became 
his own through experience or reflection, for it was an old saying, 
attributed, like the maxim itself, to Thales,® or Chilon,’? or the Wise 


1129A. See p. 60. 

2IV, II, 24. See p. 23. 

’ Xen. Cyr. VII, 2, 21. See pp. 15-16. 

‘Vol. V, p. 4. Kuhn. See p. 47. 

5 Observe that Socrates asks Euthydemus if a man seems to know himself 
who knows his name only (sec. 25). Macrobius (Sat. I, 6, 6) tells the story of 
how Vettius Praetextatus was asked by one of a group of scholars assembled. 
at his house why among the various terms applied to a man’s dress Praetextatus. 
only was used as a proper name. Vettius prefaced his explanation by saying in 
part: “. . . cum posti inscriptum sit Delphici templi et unius e numero septem 
sapientum eadem sit ista sententia yrG cavrév, quid in me nescire aestimandus. 
sum, si nomen ignoro?”’ 

® Stob. Flor. Vol. IV, p. 297; Meineke; Diog. Laert, I, 9, 35. 

7 Stob. Flor. 21, 13. 


‘“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 79 


Men generally. The Pythagorean “hearers,” Iamblichus tells 
us,® included it in the second class of questions in their catechism: 
ovdé ri TO XaXerov, GAA TL TO XaXerwTaTor’ STL Td adTrov yrOvai éoriv.'! 
How early this became a part of the Pythagorean dxotcpara we do 
not know, but we meet the thought in a fragment of Ion’s:” 
TO yv@0. cavTov TovT’ Eros yey ov pEya 
épyov 6’ dacov Leds povos érioratar Dear. 

Leopold Schmidt in his Ethik der Alten Griechen says this is the only 
place in Greek literature, as far as he knows, where self-knowledge 
is called impossible;!* but it is probable, especially in view of the _ 
period in which Ion wrote, that he was exclaiming over the difficulty 
of the task rather than its impossibility. ‘‘This yv&@: cavrdv,” he 
says, ‘‘is a little word, but the deed—how great it is Zeus only knows!” 
This sentiment that yv@& cavrdv is difficult occurs frequently in 
discussions of the maxim, and the question of wherein the difficulty 
lies is answerable only in terms of its application in each given 
instance. When Diogenes cited it to Alexander,'* he meant that 
it was hard for men to estimate aright their own ability and impor- 
tance; but when Socrates asked Alcibiades whether or not it seemed 
hard to him, he was thinking of knowing one’s soul.! 

Sometimes we read that it is harder for us to know ourselves 
than to know others, and then again that knowing others is more 
difficult, but the statements involve no contradiction, for it all depends 
upon the meaning of the maxim in a given context. So Crassus 
in Cicero’s De Oratore, after enumerating Antonius’ characteristics 


§ Aristotle, Magn. Mor. II, 1213a, 14; Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras 83. 
® Life of Pythagoras 83. 
10 The first class asked what a thing is, the second what it is especially, and 
the third what one must or must not do. 
1 The next question was ov6é ri 76 padiov, GANG Ti 7d PGoTov" Sri 7d Ber xpHoOar. 
2 Frag. 55, Nauck. From Plut. Cons. ad Apoll. 28. A similar distich 
is to be found among the Comic fragments (no. 389, Koch vol. III, p. 481). 
TO yv@0t cavTov év Novyots obdéy pEva 
Epyw bé TovTo dvos ériorarar Debs. 


This is taken from the scholiast on Alc. I, 390 (Bekker.) with no word as to its 
authorship. It is more likely to be a corruption of the Ion fragment than a 
quotation from a different author. : 

®IT, 396. Schmidt’s quotation from Goethe’s Gespriche mit Eckermann 
is excellent, but hardly apropos of Ion’s meaning. 

14See pp. 19-20. 

1% Alc. I, 129A-130E. 

6 TIT, 33. 


80 ‘“ENOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


as an orator, says of his own: ‘‘Quale sit non est meum dicere, 
propterea quod minime sibi quisque notus est et difficillime de se 
quisque sentit,”’ meaning, of course, that it is difficult to form a 
right estimate of one’s own powers. But when Apollonius of Tyana 
tells Tigellinus that he uses his wisdom to know the Gods and under- 
stand men, rod yap éavrov yvOvar xaderwrepov elvar Td &Adov yvdvar,!" 
he probably has reference to the idea that knowing oneself is the 
beginning of philosophy. Augustine says that a man in charge of 
a monastery may resolve to admit no one who is wicked, and asks 
how he will avoid doing so. ‘Those who are about to enter do not 
know themselves”; he says ‘how much less dost thou know them? 
For many have promised themselves to fulfill that holy life: ... 
they were sent into the furnace and they cracked’’;#* and Augustine’s 
thought apparently is that while we may be deceived about our 
own strength of will, we can judge of it better than we can that of 
another. Again it is sometimes assumed that a knowledge of self 
includes the ability to know others likewise; as, for instance, when 
Socrates tells Euthydemus that they who know themselves can the 
better judge of other people,!® and when he tells Alcibiades”? that 
only as a man knows himself in the three-fold way will he know 
others aright and be a fit leader among them. A story told by 
Philostratus is also in point in this connection. In his Life of Diony- 
sius of Miletus*§ he says that Dionysius once came to Sardis, where 
he learned from his host Dorion, that a certain Polemon, of whose 
eloquence he had heard fabulous tales, was to serve as advocate in 
a law-suit the next day. In the course of his conversation with 
Dorion about the coming event and about Polemon’s oratory, he 
suggested that Dorion tell him in what respects. Polemon and him- 
self excelled each other, but Dorion replied very discreetly: ‘‘ You 
will be the better judge of yourself and him. od yap id cogias olos 
cavroy TE yiyvwoKev, Erepov TE wy Gyvonoa!”’ 

This story of Philostratus’ shows not only that the knowledge 
of others was regarded as in a sense consequent upon the knowledge 


17 Philostratus, A poll. Ty. IV, 44. Cf. VI, 35 where in speaking of Apol- 
lonius’ later journeys to places which he had visited previously, he says: wé\w 
ovdayod édXelrovte TO pw} ObX Gpolw galvecOar. xarewoD yap Tod yySvar éavTdv SoxodyTos 
Xarerwrepov Eywye Hyoduar TO petvar Tov Goyoy EauvT@ Suowv. . . . 

18 Enarratio in Psalmum XCIX, 11. 

19 Xen. Mem. IV, II, 26. 

20 Alc. I, 133D ff. 

21 Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists I, XXII, 4 p. 38, ed. Kayser. 


“KNOW THYSELF’’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 81 


of self, but it hints at another idea common in later philosophical 
literature—namely, that the knowledge of self, and so the knowledge 
of man, was limited to the philosophers. Iv&@ cavrdv in any sense 
was hard, but in its simpler ethical forces it was not conceived as 
being beyond the attainment of each and all. Taken as an injunc- 
tion to know one’s soul, however, it became possible for the Wise 
Man only, and even for him perfect self-knowledge was unattainable, 
for it is God alone who fully knows Himself. This is expressed in 
part by Philo Judaeus, when he speaks of yv&O cavrdv in connection 
with the life of Jacob. Jacob was to tarry in Charran, the country 
of the external senses, only a few days, we remember,” but a longer 
period was allotted him in the city of the mind. He would never 
be really able to comprehend his soul and his mind,” Philo says, 
yet those who practice the exercise of wisdom most perfectly proceed 
to leave Charran after they have learned fully the whole field of the 
senses, as did Abraham, who attained to great progress in the com- 
prehension of complete knowledge;™ ‘“‘for when he knew most then 
he especially renounced himself in order to come to an accurate 
_ knowledge of true Being. For he who apprehends himself well, 
by clearly grasping the universal nothingness of the creature, heartily 
renounces himself, and he who renounces himself learns to know 
Being.” Sextus Empiricus, the Skeptic, says® in his discussion of 
the definition of man that man is not altogether to be comprehended, 
for Socrates was at a loss, although he continued in his investigation, 
and said that he did not know what he was and how he was related 
to the universe.?” ‘‘Democritus,” Sextus says further, “in saying 
man is what we all know, merely begged the question; for no one 
will grant that man can be known off-hand ef ye 6 [v@u0s ws peyrorov 
tntnua mpovOnkey ait@ TO yr@0i cavrov. But granted that man can 
be known at all, he will not turn the investigation over to all men 


See p. 62. 
3 De Somn. I, 56. 
4 Sec. 59-60. A free rendering. 


% Sec. 60. In his Leg. Allegor. I, 91-92 he says the mind cannot understand 
itself and asks: eit’ odk einOes of repli O00 oxerTouevor obcias; of yap Tis idias Wuxis 
tiv ovciay obk icact. Hs av repli Tis Tov Sw Wuxijs axpiBwoae; There is no real 
contradiction here. He means simply that the mind can know itself and God 
but imperfectly at best, and it can know God only as it knows itself. 

26 IIpds Aoyexots A. 264-6. 


*7 Sextus goes on to quote the Phaedrus passage here. 


82 ““RNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


but only”? to the most careful philosophers.” Hierocles shows 
that this is the thought of certain of the Golden Verses of the Pytha- 
goreans :*° 

Zed watEp, 7 TOAAGY KE KaK@v AboeLas ATayTas 

el maou deltas olw TH Saiuorr xpavrat. 

GANG od Odpoer, Emel Oelov yevos éoti Bporotow 

ois fepa mpovepovea ylats deixyvow ExaorTa. 

Gv el col TL METEOTL, KPATHOELS WY GE KENELW 

ééaxéoas Wuxiv b€ rovwr, dd TOvde cawoets. 


It is necessary for the release from all evils, Hierocles explains,*° 
that we see our own essence, and this is what is meant by olw 76 
Saiuovt xpavrar—namely, ola yux7. And he further says in effect that 
while all have implanted within them the first impulse to a knowledge 
of their own essence, it is impossible for every one to attain it, for 
all cannot be philosophers, and they alone have turned to the con- 
templation of the real Good.** 


This idea that self-knowledge was possible only for the philoso- 
pher is, of course, merely a re-statement from a different angle of 
the Stoic doctrine, logically derived from Plato, that self-knowledge 
is the beginning of philosophy. That self-knowledge could be but 
imperfectly attained even by the philosopher is expressed in the 
words of Heracleitus:* wWuxfs weipara iayv oik av éEebporo, Tacay émimrop- 
evdpuevos 65dv" ow Babdv Noyov éxe.—although we assume that Heraclei- 
tus did not especially relate the thought to ya cavrov. The 
connection of the maxim with the power of abstract contemplation 
necessary to an apprehension of true Being or the Good, which we 
met in the Alcibiades I, means perforce that man can know himself 
but intermittently, for only so can the soul be free from the limitations 
of the flesh and in unison with the Divine which knows itself per- 
fectly, call it Nods, true Being, the Good, or God. “According to 
one and the same knowledge, God knows both Himself and all 
things,’”’ said Dionysius the Areopagite. -It is but the personal 


28 Reading pévors with Bekker. 

29 vv. 61-66. 

30 Page 156, line 12, ed. Mullach. 

31 Page 157. 

2 Frag. 45, Diels. 

33 De Div. Nom. VII, 469C xara piav xal abriv yrdow 6 Oeds olde kal éavrdv kai Ta 
mwavra. ... Cf. 470A: xopnyéds éore raons yrooews kal’ qv yvooerat Tis Kal éavrdr, 
kai Ta GAXa. — 


““eNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 83 


way of putting the thought of the self-conscious Universe of the Stoic, 
or the self-knowledge of the Nojs of Plotinus.* “It is in knowledge 
that the Gods surpass us,”’ says Julian, “for jyetrar . . .tows Kal 
abrots Tav Kad@v 7d adrols yryvwoxew.® And again he says:*’ & yap 
tuets. Tore, TODTO 6 Beds del. ‘yedotov (oby ay) ely Tdv Oedv éavTdv my eidéevar 

. TavTa yap avrés éorw, elmep kai év EavT@ Kal wap’ éavT@ Exer THV 
érwoody dvyTwy Tas aiTias. 

But if this self-knowledge, while so fundamental, is withal so 
difficult, then how can a man know himself? This. was essentially 
the question which both Euthydemus®* and Alcibiades*® put to 
Socrates when he tried to impress upon them the importance of giv- 
ing heed to the maxim. In neither case does Socrates answer the 
question directly, but he implies by his method that dialectic is the 
surest way, and in the Alcibiades I that method leads at length to a 
vision of self through the vision of gpévnois and God. A lack of self- 
knowledge, moreover, was for Socrates virtually synonymous with 
that reprehensible false conceit of wisdom which he attacked so 
incessantly, and for that he says plainly that dialectic is the remedy.*° 
But there were other answers suggested for this well-nigh insoluble 
problem, and one of these grew out of the old saying ‘“‘A friend is a 
second self.’’! That a friend helps us to know ourselves is stated 
in Aristotle’s chapter on Friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics, 
and while the words of the maxim are not used there, they are implied 
in the corresponding passage of the Eudemian Ethics, and occur 
unmistakably in the Magna Moralia. Lin the Nicomachean Ethics 
Aristotle raises the question as to whether the happy man has need 
of friends, and among the arguments brought forward to prove that 
he has is the fact that in living the fullest life (é 74 {fv kal evepyeiv) 
it contributes to his happiness to contemplate noble actions and 


34 See Philo Judaeus Leg. Allegor. 1,91. % yap rév ddwy Yux7 6 Oeds éore Kara 
évvo.av. 

35 Plotinus’ God was beyond Nojs and self-knowledge was not predicated 
of Him, although a grasp of the idea of Him leads to self-knowledge in the soul. 
Enn. V, III, 7. 

% Or, VI, 184B-C. 

37 185B. 

38 Xen. Mem. IV, II, 30. 

39 Alc. I, 124B. 

49See p. 42. Proclus (on Alc. I, pp. 8-9) says in effect that the dialectic 
method leads to self-knowledge. 

41 &\Xos ‘Hpakdjjs, GANos airés. Eud. Eth. 1245a. 30. 


84 “KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


recognize them as his own; and a man can contemplate his friend 
better than himself, and he can see his friend’s deeds better also.” 
Moreover, a good man sees himself and his actions in his friend 
because his friend is likewise good and a friend is a second self.* . 
In the corresponding passage of the Eudemian Ethics,“ Eudemus 
tells us that this full life (xar’ evepyeiavy) is the being alive to our 
perceptions and the acquisition of knowledge, and to have perception 
of oneself and acquire knowledge of oneself is most to be desired. 
If one could isolate the knowledge of self from living, he says, it 
would make no difference whether you knew yourself or another 
instead of yourself; and he adds farther on: 76 ody rod gidov aicbdavecbar 
TO altod mws dvaykn aicbdvecOar eivar, Kal TO <TdOv ygirov yrwpifew TO> 
abrov tws yruwpifev.6 The author of the Magna Moralia cites the 
maxim definitely.” “Since it is very hard” he says, “as some of the 
Wise have declared, to know oneself (yvéva: airov) .. we are unable 
to contemplate ourselves from within ourselves. And because we 
are not able to know ourselves, obviously we do the very things 
for which we find fault with others. .. Accordingly, just as when we 
wish to see our face, we see it by looking into a mirror, likewise 
when we wish to know ourselves, we would acquire the knowledge 
by looking at our friend. For our friend, we say, is a second self.”’ 
¥ A friend, then, by virtue of his similar ideals and their expression 
in character and conduct may reveal to us our own, and this can 
afford us not only the happiness arising from an appreciation of our 
attainment,** but the pleasurable sense of having gained self-know- 
ledge. Yet we observe that Aristotle is speaking only of a friendship 
between those whose ideals are lofty and whose actions are noble, 
and the kind of self-knowledge which we may reach in this way is 
limited to a realization of our own worth. The author of the Ma:;aa 
Moralia, on the other hand, makes no qualifications as to the char- 


# Nic. Eth. IX, 9, 1169b. 33. Cf. Plutarch. De Cohib. Ira c.1. 

43 repos yap aids 6 vidos éotw 1170b.6. 

4 VII, 12, 1244b. 21 fff. 

4 The Greek reads: «i ofy tis d&mroréuor Kal rounoee TO Ywvwoxew abrd Kal’ adbrd 

. ody dv diagépor 4 7d ywwwoKew &ddov avO’ airod. See Fritzsche Eud. Eth. p. 331. 

4 1245a. 36. 

4777, 15, 1213a, 14 ff. See c. VI p. 3. Cicero evidently has this saying in 
mind in his De Amicitia VII, 23—‘‘ Verum enim amicum qui intuetur, tamquam 
exemplar aliquod intuetur sui.” 

48 The meaning of Aristotle is admirably explained by Stewart in his Notes 
on the Nic. Eth. vol. II, p. 385-386. 


‘“RNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 85 


acter of the friends involved, and with him it is rather the knowledge 
of our faults than of our virtues which we may derive by looking 
at a friend. Galen, we remember, thought that he had found a 
way to know himself by having a friend reveal his faults, but he 
proposed to use the friend not as a reflection of himself, but as a 
critic.4® In fact, such a person could hardly be called a friend in 
the Aristotelian sense, for he must be absolutely unbiased in his 
attitude and not necessarily similar in character.®° 


The figure of the mirror to which the author of the Magna Moralia 
refers goes back to the Alcibiades I,*' and it is used occasionally in 
connection with yv&@. cavrdv by later writers. Seneca says that 
mirrors were invented ut homo ipse se nosset, and he elaborates 
the theme. ‘‘Many results come from their use,” he says: ‘‘first 
a conception of oneself, then counsel for certain ends; if a man is 
good-looking, the mirror counsels that he avoid disgrace; if ugly, 
it makes him know that his physical defects ought to be counter- 
balanced by moral virtues; if young, it warns him in the flower of 
his age that it is the time for learning, and for daring brave deeds; 
if old, it counsels him to lay aside unbecoming conduct and think 
somewhat of death. To this end the nature of things has given 
us an opportunity to see ourselves.”*? Olympiodorus compared the 
yv@0. cavrov on the temple of Apollo to the mirrors placed on Egyp- 
tian temples, which he says are able to do the same thing as the 
Pythian inscription.*® Stobaeus, moreover, felt the suggestion of 


49 See pp. 50-51. 

50 While recognizing one’s own condition by seeing another in like state is 
quite different from recognizing similarities of character, a passage in Statius’ 
Thebaid is of some interest in this connection. Tydeus, mortally wounded by 
Melanippus, had hurled a weapon at him in return, and as he lay dying, he begged 
for the head of Melanippus. Capaneus found Melanippus and brought him, 
still breathing, on his shoulder to Tydeus. The poem continues: 

“‘Erigitur Tydeus vultuque occurrit et amens 
Laetitiaque iraque, ut singultantia vidit 
Ora trahique oculos seseque agnovit in illo 


Imperat absciscum porgi.” ..... (VIII, 751-754) 
$1 133A. 
52 Nat. Quaest. I, XVII, 4. The chapter begins with the words: ‘ Deridean- 
tur nunc philosophi, quod de speculi natura disserant”. . . . Cf. De Ira II, 


36, 1: “‘Quibusdam ut ait Sextius, iratis profuit adspexisse speculum. Pertur- 
bavit illos tanta mutatio sui, velut in rem praesentem adducti non agnoverunt se.”’ 

53 In Alc. I, vol. II, p. 9, Creuzer. Cf. Augustine, Sermo LVIII, 13: ‘‘Com- 
memora fidem tuam, inspice te: sit tamquam speculum tibi Symbolum tuum.”’ 


86 “kNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE - 


the maxim so strongly in connection with the figure of the mirror 
that in his chapter on ['y&@ Zavrov he included an extract from Bias 
which reads: Oewper Gomep ev KaTomTpw Tas cavTOD mpaéers, va Tas per 
Kadds émixooufs, tas dé aioxpdas Kxadvmrps. There is, besides, a half- 
humorous allusion to the figure in Lucian’s essay on Pantomime. 
“The applause of the spectators would know no bounds,”’ he says, 
“‘when each of them recognizes his own qualities and comes to see 
himself in the pantomime as in a mirror, and what he is accustomed 
to experience and what he is accustomed to do. For then men 
cannot restrain themselves for delight, but they burst into applause 
with one accord, as they see, each one, the likeness of his own soul, 
and come to know themselves.” drexvas yap, he continues, 7d 
Aedgixov éexeitvo 76 v0 ceavrov éx ris Beas Exeivns adrots mepiyiyvera, 
and they go away from the theatre cognizant of what they ought 
to choose and what to avoid, instructed in what they did not know 
before.”” That a man may see himself reflected not only in theatrical 
representations but in literature is implied in one of Martial’s epi- 


grams:*° , 
<3 . . Bs 
Hominem pagina nostra sapit. 
Sed non vis, Mamurra, tuos cognoscere mores 
Nec te scire. Legas Aetia Callimachi.”’ 


Philo Judaeus saw in the purification rites of the Hebrews a 
means of acquiring one kind of self-knowledge.*’ He says that most 
people use pure water only for purposes of purification, but Moses 
had some of the prepared ashes from the sacred fire put in a vessel 
with water, and instituted the sprinkling of the candidates for puri- 
fication with this mixture. And the reason for this, he says, was that 
he wished rods éml tiv Tod dvros Oeparetiay lovtas yv@vat mporepov éavTovs 
kal thy idiay obciay.®® It is our bodily essence—earth and water— 
of which Moses reminds us through this rite, Philo says further, 
because he understood that the most beneficial purification is just 
this—ro yvdvai twa éavrov kal &€& olwv ws obdeuas aorovdfjs dkiwy, TEegpas 
kal téatos, cvvexpabn°® ‘For in coming to know this,’”’ Philo adds, 
“a man will straightway cast aside his treacherous conceit, and 


54 Stob. Flor. 21, 11. 

% Sec. 81. 

5X, IV, 10-12. 

57 De Sac. (Sp. Leg. I) 262-265. 
68 Sec. 263. 

59 Sec. 264. 


““kNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 87 


discard his excessive pride, and be well-pleasing to God.’ This 
same idea is expressed in other passages in Philo,®*® and man’s humble 
origin is one of his frequently recurring themes. The sprinkling 
with ashes and water would bring man to a truer self-estimate, he 
felt, and hence was a means of aiding him to know himself in the 
sense of knowing his measure. And this realization of their own 
nothingness Philo conceived as essential for those who would seek 
to know the superior greatness of God. 

The Stoic doctrine that man is a part of the soul of Nature led 
the Stoics to emphasize a knowledge of the Universe not only as 
something to be included in self-knowledge, but as a means to attain- 
ing it. This is expressed several times by Cicero and repeatedly 
by the Church Fathers. We recall that Cicero says in his De Fini- 
bus* that without a knowledge of natural philosophy we cannot see 
what force certain maxims (including mosce te) have, and again that 
we must enter into the nature of things and see deeply what it de- 
mands, or we cannot know ourselves; and he also emphasizes 
this thought in the passage from the De Legibus which we cited 
at length. Among the’ Church Fathers, Clement of Alexandria 
says of the maxim that “it can be an injunction to the pursuit of 
knowledge, for it is not possible to know the parts without knowing the 
essence of the whole; and we must concern ourselves with the origin 
of the world, as through a knowledge of this it will be possible to 
understand the nature of man.’®? And Minucius Felix says in his 
Octavius ** “T do not deny . .. that man ought to know himself 
and look around and see what he is, and whence, and why—whether 
collected from the elements or formed harmoniously from atoms, or 
rather made, fashioned, and animated by God; and we cannot 
investigate and draw forth this knowledge without inquiring into 
the Universe, since all things are so closely connected and bound 
together that unless you examine diligently the methods of divinity 
you can not know humanity... .” 

The Stoics thus said virtually that the way to know oneself 
is to know God—an idea more frequently expressed than its equally 

60 Cf. De Sac. Abel et Caini 55-56: weurvnuévos yap ris tdlov rept wavra bwepBodfs 
obdeveias peuvnoy Kal Tis TOD Geod repli ravra brepBodrfjs. See also De Somn. I, 211-212; 
De Posteritate Caini 115. 

61 See pp. 67-68. 

62 See p. 69. 


63 Sirom. I, 60. 
“Sec, 17. 


88 ‘““KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


true converse that to know God one must know himself. For it 
all depends upon what we mean by God and Self-knowledge. If 
man is proud and presumptuous or if his God is a far-off majestic 
Being, man must measure himself aright before he can comprehend 
God’s greatness. But if man is seeking to realize his union with a 
God who permeates all Nature, or with a God of abstract Reason, 
he can come into that realization of his true self only as he apprehends 
God. This last thought becomes warm with religious feeling, more- 
over, when we read Augustine’s expression of it in the chapter of 
his Confessions entitled Homo Sese Totum Non Novit: “ Although 
no ‘man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which 
is in him,’ yet there is something in man which the spirit of man 
which is in him does not know. But thou, Lord, who hast made 
him knowest him altogether. . . . What I know about myself I 
know by thine enlightening me, and what I do not know about 
myself I shall not know until my darkness become as noonday in 
Thy sight. ’’6? 


65 See pp. 45 and 94. 
66 From I Cor. II, 11. 
67 Augustine, Confessions X, V, 7. 


CHAPTER X 


TNQOI DATTON InN EARLY ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE 


We have found occasion now and then in the preceding chapters 
to quote from the writings of the Fathers of the Christian Church 
in illustration of certain points touching the use of yvd& cavrév. 
Direct allusions to the apophthegm are not numerous, however, 
in view of the large body of literature which these men have left 
to us, although the theme of self-knowledge found a place in their 
thought in other connections, and received a treatment at their 
hands somewhat similar to that accorded the maxim in non-Christian 
writings, besides taking on a few conceptions which were in a sense 
peculiar to Christianity. The prominence given the maxim or the 
theme seems to have varied somewhat with different authors. In 
studying the works of the Fathers of the first five centuries we look 
largely in vain for either theme or maxim among the scanty remains 
of the literature of the Apostolic Age,’ and in some of the later more 
voluminous works, such as those of Chrysostom and Hieronymus.” 
On the contrary, Clement of Alexandria of the 2nd century is one of 
our most fruitful sources for ideas connected with the maxim directly, 
and the theme of self-knowledge is later particularly recurrent in 
Ambrose. Clement, however, while the most valuable of the 2nd 
century Fathers for his discussions of yv&6: cavrév, does not stand 
alone among his contemporaries in referring to the apophthegm, 
for it occurs in the anti-heretical polemics of Irenaeus and Hippolytus 
of the Eastern church, and in the works of Minucius Felix and 
Tertullian of the Western. 


Clement not only gives interpretations of the maxim, but following 
the tradition already established by Jewish writers, who tried to 
account for the best in Greek thought by saying that the Greeks had 
borrowed from the Hebrews, he maintains that yv@% cavréy and 
certain other apophthegms really originated in the Old Testament. 
He says® that one of the Greek Sages drew ézod 0e from “‘ Abraham 
proceeded as the Lord spake to him’’ . . . that ’Eyyva, rapa 8’ a&rn 


1 This may be due somewhat to the fact that we have but a fraction of the 
literature of the 1st century extant. 

*It occurs in one of Hieronymous’ Epistles, however. See p. 44, n. 30. 

3 Strom. II, 15, 70-71. 

‘Gen. XII, 4. Cf. Ambrose De Abraham I, II, 5. 


90 “KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


is from the words of Solomon, saying, “‘My son, if thou become 
surety for thy friend, thou wilt give thine hand to the enemy,’® 

. and more mystically the yv@6 cavrov is taken from the passage 
“Thou hast seen thy brother, thou hast seen thy God.’* A little 
farther on he adds: cawéorepov 5é 7d yOu cavrov Tapeyyvav 6 Mevofs 
A€yer ToAAaXLs mpocéxe ceavTa.’ Clement’s pupil and _ successor 
Origen, who became one of the most learned and constructively 
influential of the Fathers, made use of the maxim in his oral teaching, 
as we have learned from the panegyric of him by his disciple, Gregory 
Thaumaturgus,® and he treated the theme of self-knowledge with 
particular fulness in connection with a clause in the Song of Songs— 
“Tf thou know not (thyself), O thou fairest among women.’’® He 
begins his exposition of the verse by saying: “Unius Chilonis 
scilicet ex septem quos apud Graecos singulares fuisse in sapientia 
fama concelebrat, haec inter caetera mirabilis fertur esse sententia 
quae ait: Scito teipsum vel cognosce teipsum. Quod tamen Salomon, 
quem praecessisse omnes hos tempore et sapientia ac rerum scientia 
in praefatione nostra docuimus, ad animam quasi mulierem. .. 
dicit ‘Nisi cognoveris temetipsam, O pulchra inter mulieres . . .”’ 
Writers after Clement and Origen gather much of what they have 
to say about self-knowledge around this text and the “Take heed | 
to thyself” of the Pentateuch. Basil wrote a homily on IIposéxe 
LYeav7G, and expositions of the verse in the Song of Songs are numerous. 
Discussions and allusions pertinent to our subject are not confined 


5 Prov. VI, 1-2. 

6 This is not in the Bible. See note on Trans. by Wilson in Anti-Nicene 
Christian Library. 

7 Ex. X, 28; XXXIV, 12; Deut. IV, 9. Cf. Philo Judaeus, De Mig. Abraham 8: 

wévta Tov aidva ylywoxe ceavrov, ws kal Mwvofs modd\axod bibidoKer NéEywr “Tr pogexeE 
cveauT@.” 

8 See p. 39. 

*T, 8. 

107m Cant. Cant. II, 56. Extant in the Latin trans. of Hieronymus. Pat. 
Graec. Vol. XIII, p. 123. 

11 Ambrose (Hex. VI, 6, 39) declares that “‘ Nosce te ipsum” is not a command 
of the Pythian Apollo, but of Solomon, although Moses wrote long before in 
Deutoronomy “Attende tibi, O homo, attende tibi.” Cf. In Ps. CXVIII, HW, 
13: ““Nosce te ipsum quod Apollini Pythio assignant gentiles viri, quasi ipse auctor 
fuerit huius sententiae; eum de nostro usurpatum ad sua transferant. ...’’ Also 
Cyril of Alex. Contra Julianum I, 14-15. He reminds us that Moses was older 
than the Greek Sages, and says that Pythagoras and Thales gathered much of 
their lore in Egypt. 


‘““ENOW THYSELF’? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 91 


to these texts, however, for we find suggestive passages in Euse- 
bius’s Praeparatio Evangelica, and in a variety of ecclesiastical 
works of the 4th and 5th centuries, especially in those of Ambrose 
and Augustine. The familiarity of the more important of the Fathers 
with Greek literature is reflected in their writings through their 
introduction of Stoic tenets and other conceptions which Greek 
philosophy connected with the apophthegm, although the assiduous- 
ness with which those of later generations studied the works of 
their predecessors resulted in a considerable degree of repetition 
from purely ecclesiastical sources. Accordingly, while it is not 
difficult to distinguish ideas which come ultimately from Greek 
philosophy from those which arose within the Church, we cannot 
alvays determine the immediate source from which a given author 
has taken his ideas regarding self-knowledge. A study of self- 
knowledge in this class of literature thus lends itself to a topical 
rather than a chronological treatment, and owing to the very repeti- 
tousness of the Fathers, a summary of their teaching touching this 
point may be made rather brief. 


The reflection in these writers of certain themes which philo- 
sophy connected with the maxim has become obvious to some extent 
through citations already made from their works.” Naturally 
the doctrines most frequently given expression were those of the 
Stoics. Clement of Alexandria brings up a Stoic theme in his 
chapter on the Aims of the Gnostics when he says: ratry kal 
Tov vodv eiAnpaper, iva eidGuev 6 rovoduev, Kal TO yv@O. cavTov évTadvda 
eldevas ey’ @ vyeyovayev. He does not say with the Stoics that 
“we are born to serve society,’’ however, but that we have 
been born to be obedient to the commandments, if we wish to 
be saved. Origen in his exposition of the verse in the Song 
of Songs to which we have referred, treats the passage, of course, as 
symbolical of Christ and the Church, and he goes on to say that 
Christ in speaking to the souls of believers places the greatest safety 
and happiness in their knowledge of themselves. Then he says 
that the soul ought to take knowledge of itself in two ways—with 
regard to what it is in substance, and what it is in its affections, and 
he explains each of these points in detail. By its affections he 
means the way the soul reacts to certain emotions and experiences, 


12 See pp. 39 f. and 87 f. 
3 Strom. VII, III, 20. 


92 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


and apropos of this kind of self-knowledge he introduces the ques- 
tions ‘“‘What ought to be done? What avoided? Wherein do you 
lack? Wherein do you abound? What ought to be corrected and 
what cherished?’ Regarding the substance of the soul, which 
he calls a more difficult problem,” he says that the soul ought to 
know whether it is corporeal or incorporeal, whether both body 
and soul are simple, or composed of two or three or more substances 
. . . how the soul was made . . . whether the virtue of the soul 
can approach and depart, or whether it is unchangeable and if once 
acquired does not flow back.’”7 The most recurrent Stoic theme 
in this literature was that of man’s knowledge of himself in relation 
to the Universe. Basil says in his Hexaemeron that in this city of 
the Universe was our first native country, and that there we see 
the origin of man;'* and in his Homily on Ipovéxe Zeavrg, that we 
may trace out the Creator in ourselves as in a certain small uni- 
verse.'® And Ambrose says: “Est ... prudentis agnoscere se 
ipsum, et quemadmodum a sapientibus definitum est, secundum 
naturam vivere.”?° Ambrose brings out still another phase of 
Stoic teaching in connection with the story of Joseph’s being sold 
into Egypt. God gave through Joseph a means of consolation to 
those who are in servitude, he says. ke He assigned him an overseer 
that men might learn that even in the worst circumstances character 
can be superior, and no condition is devoid of virtue, st animus se 
uniuscuiusque cognoscat; the flesh is subject to servitude, not the 
WM be 


The direct influence of Plato appears in a passage in Ambrose’s 
Hexaemeron.~ ‘We are one thing,” he says, “ours is another, 
what is around us is another. That is, we are mind and soul, ours 


14 In Cant. Cant. 56 ff. See Pat. Graec. XIII, 125B. 

8 125D. 

16 126B. 

17 127A: “Sed et hoc adhuc ad cognoscendam semetipsam anima requirat 
si virtus animae eius accedere potest et decedere. . . .” 

18 Hex. VI, 1. 

19 Sec. 7: éay yap mposéxys ceavtG, oddity Seqon ex ris Tav bwv KaracKevijs Tov 
Anuwovyov etixvebew, GAN’ & ceavTs oiovel uxpS Tir dvaxdouy. 

20 De Excessu Fratris Sui Satyri I, 45. 

*t De Joseph Patriarcha I, IV, 20. 

VI, 42. Farrar says that Ambrose read the works of Plato with warm 
admiration (Lives of the Fathers, vol. II, p. 123). 


““KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 93 


are the members of the body and its sensibilities around us are money, 
servants, and the furnishings of the outer life. Attend to yourself, 
therefore, and know yourself—that is, not what sort of limbs you 
have nor how much physical endurance, nor how great possessions, 
nor how much power, but the character of your soul and mind.” 
We feel also something of the Neo-Platonist spirit of abstraction 
from the body in one of Ambrose’s comments relative to the familiar 
verse in the Song of Songs: “‘Cognosce igitur te, et naturae tuae 
decorem, et exi quasi exuta vinculis pedem, et nudo exserta vestigio; 
ut carnalia integumenta non sentias, vestigium mentis tuae corporalia 
vincula non implicent.’”” And a little before he says of Paul’s 
being caught up into the third Heaven that ‘“‘his soul had risen from 
his body . . . and while he was made a stranger to himself, he held 
within himself the ineffable words which he heard.’ 


. A limited heirarchy of spirits naturally came into Christianity 
through the old Hebrew faith and the teachings of Philo, though 
it was limited indeed as compared with the numerous intermediaries 
between God and man developed by the Gnostics, against whose 
extreme ideas Christianity inevitably protested.” Origen, how- 


3 De Isaac et Anima I, IV, 16. 

*4Sec. 11. Cf. VIII, 64 where he says: ‘‘In illa ergo amaritudine non cog- 
novit se anima; corruptibile enim corpus aggravat animam, et terrenum habita- 
culum cito inclinatur. Cognoscere autem semper se debet. Sed tentatus est 
et Petrus, et non se cognovit et Petrus; nam si cognovisset, non negavisset auc- 
torem.” Cf. also Aug. In John XXIII, 10: “Sed relinque foris et vestem tuam et 
carnem tuam, descende in te. .. .” 

* Trenaeus in his attempt to overthrow the intricate Gnostic theory of Crea- 
tion, and to show that God alone was the Creator of the world, bases one of his 
arguments upon the essential self-knowledge of each of the beings concerned. 
The Gnostic theory held that Achamoth outside the Pleroma, although herself 
the image of the Propator, suffered among other passions the passion of ignorance, 
and the Demiurge whom she created in the image of the Nods (who was the Only- 
Begotten of the Father) without fully realizing by what means he was doing it, 
created an order of aeons which was an image of the Aeons within the Pleroma. 
In his refutation of this theory, Irenaeus asks if the Demiurge, who was an 
image of Nods formed by the Savior through Achamoth, was then ignorant of 
himself, ignorant of Creation, ignorant too of the Mother. . . . Iiso, the Savior 
must have made him an imperfect image, or else the very Nois of the Father was 
ignorant of himself; and again he says that if the Aeons are from Logos, and 
Logos from Nojs, and Nods from Bythus (the Propator), they must be similar, 
like successive lights from a torch, and either all will have the passion of ignorance 
or Achamoth cannot have it. And if all have it, then the Propator would be 
ignorant of Himself! What is more, the Logos cannot be ignorant of the Father, 


94 “KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


ever, makes the soul’s knowledge of itself include a knowledge of 
its place in the order of spirits—of whether there are spirits of the 
same substance with itself, and others not the same but different 
from it, and whether the substance of angels is the same as its own.” 
Self-knowledge was definitely predicated of the members of the Trin- 
ity severally and collectively, particularly after the rise of Neo- 
Platonism. Augustine raises the question of the self-knowledge 
of the Trinity,?’ and self-knowledge was asserted separately of the 
Father and of Christ?® by others writers, while Dionysius the 
Areopagite declares that the Angels know themselves.*° 

The God of the Christians, like the God of the Jews,*! was too 
great for man’s full comprehension,” but the Church Fathers empha- 
sized the thought that self-knowledge was a necessary help toward 
an apprehension of Him.** Hence Athanasius interprets the verse 
in the Song of Songs to mean: Tv ceavrév mpdrov, tva kal éue yvevar 
duvyOys** and Gregory of Pisida says® in effect that to see God a 





as they maintain; if he is not ignorant of himself, he must know the Father to 
know in whom he exists. (Adv. Her. II, 7, 2 & 17,5 & 8.) 


°° In Cant. Cant. 58: “agnitionem sui anima requirat si est aliquis ordo. .. . 
27 Confessions, XIII, 11. 12. 


28 Dion. Areop., De Div. Nom. VII, II, 470; Epiphanius LXXIV, 4, 10 
‘Eavrov yap 6 Beds yuwwowe. Cf. LX XVI, 11. 


29 Prudentius A potheosis 963-969: 


” 


“|. . Dignusne videtur 


Qui testis sibi sit, seque ac sua carna novit.”’ 

30 De Eccles. Hierarch. II, ITI, 4. 

31 See Bigg, Christian Platonists, pp. 9-10. 

% See Tertullian, Apologeticum 17: ‘‘Deus unus est . . incomprehensibilis, 
etsi per gratiam repraesentetur; . . . Quod vero immensum est soli sibi notum 
est.”’Arnobius, Adv. Gentes II, 74: ‘“‘Neque enim promptus est cuiquam Dei 
mentem videre . . . Homo animal caecum et ipsum se nesciens nullis potest 
rationibus consequi.’”” Ambrose De Fide V, 19, 237: ‘Paulus raptus usque ad 
tertium coelum se ipsum nescivit: Arius in stercore volutatus Deum scivit. 
Paulus dicit de se ipso ‘Deus scit,’ Arius de Dio dicit, ‘Ego novi.’ ” Augustine, 
Sermo LII, 23: “In te enim quod est, potes nosse: in eo qui te fecit quod est 

. » quando potes nosse?’’ 

33 Cf. pp. 45 and 88. 

4 Frag. In Cant. Cant. Patrologia Graeca, vol. 27, p. 1348. Cf. Basil, Hex. 
IX, 6. (Pat. Graec. vol. XXIX p. 204): kairor ob waddov &€ odpavod Kal vis Tor 
Ye ouverts Eavrov ekeracavta ws pnow 6 rpogynrns "EPavpactwn % yvdcis cov && euov. . . « 


33 Hex. 602 ff.: 


“NOW THYSELF”? IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 95 


man must take the successive steps of knowledge and at length he 
finds that he must take into consideration the yv@@. cavrév. In one 
sense man’s attempt to know himself, by reason of its very 
failure, makes him realize the greatness of his Creator, and this 
is the purport of a passage in Hilary of Potier’s De Trinitate ;*® 
“Ipsum me quoque nesciens, ita sentio; ut te magis eo quod mei 
sum ignarus admirer.” And Augustine says:3?7 “Ex me quippe 
intelligo quam sit mirabilis et incomprehensibilis scientia tua qua 
me fecisti, quando nec me ipsum comprehendere valeo quem fecisti.”’ 
To know God in the philosophical sense, however, was possible only 
for the elect, even as in the pagan mind it was possible only for the 
philosopher. So Origen says of the knowledge of the substance of the 
soul:*8 ‘“Apparet ad dilectas quasque animas haec dici, quibus cum 
gratia multa sentiendi et intelligendi a Deo data sit ...”; and 
such souls, he goes on to say, must not neglect themselves if those 
who desire to be built up in the faith are to be instructed. The 
chosen few, according to the Gnostics, could know God by knowledge 
(yv@o.s) but the rest could know him by faith only. Yet this faith 
was felt by: Augustine to be in a sense superior to the path of philo- 
sophical knowledge, in that it opened the way for God to actively 
reveal Himself and man’s nature in the soul. While the Christian, 
he says in effect, may not know the distinctions between the different 
kinds of philosophy even, he does not fail to know that from one 
true and supreme God we have a nature made after his image, “‘and 
the doctrine by which we know Him and ourselves.’’*® And again 
he says:*® “‘. . . . omnes sibi noti erunt et cogitationes suas ignotas 
non habebunt, cum venerit Dominus, et illuminaverit abscondita 
tenebrarum.”’ 

Man’s self-knowledge as revealed by faith and the teaching of 
the Church included chiefly two things—that God created man in 
His own image, and that man is by nature sinful and in need of 





otTw Te Nowrév elrep &E dyvwolas 

TO T'v6t cavrév eis dtdoxepw A&Bor 

Téws éauTG avddAaAjoo kal pao. (vv. 632-635) 
PATE, 53. 
37 De Trinitate XV, 13. Cf. De Anima et Eius Origine IV, 12.. 
38 In Cant. Cant. II, 59. Pat. Graec. vol. XIII, p. 128A-B. 


39 De Civ. Dei VIII, 10, 2: . . . “et doctrinam, qua eum nosque noverimus.’”’ 
40Sermo XLVII, 23. Cf. Lactantius, Ep. Div. Inst. LX: ... ‘‘Deus 
relevavit se nobis et ostendit; ut . . . simul cum ipso Deo nosmetipsos, quos 


”? 
. 


impietas dissociaverat, nosceremus. . . 


96 ‘“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


repentance. These doctrines were essentially Hebraic, but the 
relating of them to yv@ cavrov and to self-knowledge generally 
was in the main peculiar to the Christian Fathers,“! as was also the 
occasional connecting of the maxim with the doctrine of immortality. 
That God created man and created him in his own image is a theme 
which occurs frequently not only in the Hexaemeral writings, but 
in other commentaries and anti-heretical literature as well. Clement 
of Alexandria says of the maxim: “It means ‘know whose image 
thou art,’ what is thine essence, and what thy creation”; and Hip- 
polytus says in his Refutation of All Heresies:® rovréots 7d Tra 
geauTov, emvyvovs tov memounxdra Oedv. ‘“‘What is se mnoscere,”’ asks 
Ambrose,“ “except for each one to know that he is made after the 
image and likeness of God?’’ And elsewhere he says:® “Cognosce te, 
anima, that thou art not of earth or clay, since God hath breathed 
upon thee and made thee to become a living soul.” 


But while God created man, unlike the rest of the Universe,“ in 
his own image, man is human, and by reason of his humanity, prone 
tosin. Weare familiar with the fact that knowing that we are human 
came to be attached to yv&# cavrév, but outside of Church literature 
it usually meant to recognize one’s inability to cope with the Gods 
because of the limitations of the flesh, whereas in the writings of 
the Fathers it means ‘recognize that you are a sinner,’ and further, 


41 The Epicurean Philodemus, however, may have the maxim in mind when 
he asks: ws yap mucety Tov auapravovta ph aréyvw[olua pédAdre, yryvookwy abrov 
oik bvTa Tedé (c) ov kal puuvn<c>cKwv bt. wavres duaprdavew eidMacw}; (Ilepi Iap- 
pacias 46. p. 22 (Teubner). And Libanius uses it in the sense of knowing the 
frailty of man’s nature in view of the power of evil, when he makes Timon the 
Misanthrope say: aGAX’ ézed OeSv tis agetbeTd pou THY axAdv Kal rHv PuxH ExdOnpe 
THY éunv Kal Kata TO Ypdypa TO AedXgixdv eyvwy Euautov Kal ti mor’ éoriv &vOpwios 
kal dcov Kaxév éott cvvetdor Kal Sorep guyfs cbvOnua NaBav réppw pev Ths mpds avOpeérous 
ducrdias éyerounv. ... (Or. XII, 11). 

#2 Strom. V, 4, 23. 

43X34. In Pat. Graec. vol. XVI, p. 3454. 

“In Ps. CXVIII, Il, 13. 

In Ps. XVIII, X, 10. Cf. In Ps. CXVIII, XIII, 20: “Bene timet, qui 
hominem se esse cognoscit; . . . sciamus quia homines sumus, ad imaginem 
scilicet et similitudinem Dei facti....” Cf. also Hex. VI, 8,50. Augustine (Sermo 
LII, 17) bids us look for traces of the Trinity within ourselves, since we are 
made in God’s image. 

4 See Gregory of Nyssa In Cant. Cant. Homily II, P. G. vol. 44, p. 805 C. 
yr. wécov irép tiv ori Kriow Tapa Tod TemoLnKdTos TeTiunoaL. obK obpaves ‘yéeyoveV 
eixav Tod Geod, ob cedjvn, odx HALOS... . 


‘““KNOW THYSELF’”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 97 


‘come to a better self-knowledge by way of repentance.’ Augustine 
says in one of his Sermons: “Thou darest perchance to judge about 
the heart of another what thou dost not know: but thou knowest 
thyself to be sinful’’*’; and in quoting the verse in Romans—‘ All men 
have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’’ he says: Agnosce 
te, infrmitas humana.’*° Touching the further point Clement of 
Alexandria says*® that he who according to the word of repentance 
knows his life to be sinful, will loose it from the sin by which it is 
drawn away, and when he has loosed it, he will find it, according to 
the obedience which lives again to faith and dies tosin. And he adds: 
Tour’ ovv éott TO ebpety THY PuxV TO yvSvar éavtov. Ambrose, too, 
says of the words “If thou know not (thyself), thou fairest among 
women” :—“‘hoc est, nisi cognoscas te mortalem, rationalem, et tua 
peccata fatearis, cito dicas iniquitates tuas ut justificeris, nisi con- 
vertaris . . . nisi scias te, inquit... et dicas ‘Fusca sum et 
decora (Cant. 1, 4) fusca sum, quia peccavi’ . . . nihil tibi proderit 
patrum gratia.” It is doubtless passages such as these that Bauer 
has in mind when after speaking of the place of the Delphic maxim 
in Greek philosophy he says in his Das Christliche des Platonismus :** 
“In welcher nahen Beziehung aber diess zum Christenthum steht, 
zeigt an einfachsten und unmittelbarsten die Zusammenstellung des 
delphischen—Sokratischen Spriiche mit dem evangelischen Aufruf 
zur peravoia, jenen peravoeire das ja selbst nichts anderes ist als ein 
verstarktes den Menschen nicht blos uberhaupt, sondern in Zustande 
der Sunde in das Auge fassende yv&@: cavtév. Sokratische Philosophie 
und Christenthum verhalten sich dennoch, in diesen ihren Aus- 
gangspunkt betrachtet zu einander wie Selbstserkenntniss und 
Sunder-erkenntniss.”” A recognition of our sinful nature, together 
with a sense of the greatness of God; naturally leads to the Christian 


7 LVI, 3. Cf. Ambrose In Ps. CXVIII, 16, 11: “hominem se esse cognovit 
impar sibi bellum adversum spiritalia nequitiae in coelestibus. . .”’ Cf. also 
Basil, Ep. CCIV, 4. 

48 TIT, 23. 

49 In Ps. LXV, 14. 

50 Strom. IV, 6, 27. 

51 Im Ps. CXVIII, Il, 14. The wicked do not know themselves according 
to Ambrose, De Excidio Hierosol. III, XVII, 28: ‘Sed hunc exitum sacrilegi 
ferunt, aut proditores vel percussores parentum, qui verum patrem non agnove- 
runt, nec sese cognoscunt.”? Cf. Augustine, Sermo XLVI, 18: ‘‘Haeretici .. . 
ipsi non se norunt.”’ See 37 also. 

52 Page 24. 


98 ““KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


grace of humility. Chrysostom says that the more we advance in 
virtue, the more we make ourselves contrite, and that he who best 
knows himself esteems himself to be nothing.*® So Augustine says: 
“Tu, homo, cognosce quia es homo: tota humilitas tua ut cognoscas 
te”;* and Theodoret says: ‘‘We know and measure ourselves in 
truth, for we have learned from the beginning the humility of the 
Apostles. ’”® 


As the idea that man is human was extended by the ecclesiastical 
writers to mean ‘know that you are sinful, and be humble,’ so 
the kindred thought of knowing that man is mortal came to mean 
‘know that while you have a mortal body, your soul is immortal.’ 
Irenaeus says that God may permit us to be mortal and die 
that we may never become puffed up as if we had life from 
ourselves, . . but may learn from experience that we have eternal 
life from Him. ‘And was it not on this account,” he asks, “‘that 
God permitted our resolution into the dust of the earth—that we 
might be clearly instructed in every way and diligent in all things 
for the future, ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves?’ And 
Basil says in his Homily on IIpocéxe Zeavrg: ““Know thine own 
nature; that thy body is mortal, thy soul immortal, and that thy 
life is somehow two-fold—thine own life after the flesh which swiftly . 
passeth, and the inborn life of the soul which knoweth no bounds.’’>” 
Eusebius would find a basis for this im iortality in the conception 
that man is made in the image of the immortal God, for he says*® 
that Plato and Moses agree about the soul, in that Moses defined 
the substance of the soul as immortal when he taught that man was 
made after God’s image; ‘‘and Plato,”’ he explains, “‘as if he had 
been a disciple of Moses, says in the Alcibiades I: ‘Looking to God 

. and into the virtue of the human soul, we would see and know 


33 In Matt. XXV,4. Pat. Graec. vol. LVII, p. 332. 

54 In John XXV, 16. Cf. Sermo LXVII, 9: humiles erant, non superbi 

. se agnoscebant. ... Also Sermo CCXC, 1, where he says of John the 
Baptist: ‘‘quod bonum erat ei, se agnovit, ut ad pedes Domini . . . humilia- 
retur.”’ 

& Fp. LXXXVI. Cf. De Prov. V. 

56 Trenaeus Adv. Her. V, 23. 

§? Sec, 3. 

58 Praep. Evangelica XI, 34 where he says that man shall know the exper- 
iences that belong to God, by having become immortal. Augustine, however, 
says we do not know the origin of the soul—that it is a gift from God, but not of 
the same nature as God Himself. De Anima et Origine IV, 3. 


“KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 99 


ourselves best.’ ’*® Something of this sense of man’s birthright 
seems to have been felt previously by Tertullian in a passage in his 
A polegeticum, although Tertullian taught the resurrection of the body 
as well as the immortality of the soul. The renewal of day and night, 
and of the seasons, and of the fruits of the earth, are all emblems of 
the resurrection, he says, and then he addresses the reader: “Tu 
homo, tantum nomen, si intelligas te vel de titulo Pythiae discens, 
dominus omnium morientium et resurgentium, ad hoc morieris ut 
pereas?’’ The mission of Christ, according to Tertullian, was not 
to make the soul know itself, for it did not lack knowledge of its 
author and judge, and of its own condition, but to make the soul safe 
by a knowledge of the resurrection with the flesh, which it could 
not know until it was manifested in Christ’s resurrection.” 

In these few ideas, then,—knowing that we are created by God 
in His image, knowing that we are sinners in need of repentance, 
and knowing that we are immortal—lie the chief connotations” of 
self-knowledge which are to be found in the works of the Church 
Fathers for the most part, rather than among non-Christian writers. 
Yet the difference was, after all, largely a matter of emphasis and 
direction. The essential divinity of the soul and a kind of immor- 
tality were a part of the faith of Plato and of some of the later philo- 
sophical schools, and the sinfulness of the flesh found recognition 
in the asceticism of the Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists, as well 
as in the indifference accorded to carnal desires by the Stoics. We 
would not in any way belittle the claims of the Hebrew Scriptures or 
the teachings of Christ and his Apostles; but as touching this parti- 
cular theme of self-knowledge, it seems evident that, however much 
priority over the Delphic maxim the Church Fathers may have 
felt disposed to attribute to Moses’ IIpocéxe ZeavrG and the verse 
in the Song of Songs, they owed the greater part of their thought, 
even if somewhat indirectly, to the yv&& cavréy on Apollo’s temple. 


59 See. p. 61 and n. 10. 

69 Chap. 48. 

61 De Carne Christi 12: ‘Sed adeo non ignorat ut auctorem et arbitrum et 
statum suum norit. ... Nunc autem non effigiem suam didicit a Christo, 
sed salutem. ... Ignoravimus plane resurrecturam cum carne. Hoc erit 
quod Christus manifestavit.”’ 

62 Augustine discusses the soul’s knowledge of itself more or less in his De 
Trimitate IX & X. In X, 12 he says in effect that the precept ‘‘Know Thyself” 
means ‘ Know’ and ‘self,’ andso by the very act by which the mind understands 
the words, it knows itself. 


PASSAGES IN WHICH THE PRESENCE OF THE MAxim 18S MADE EXPLICIT, WHETHER 
BY THE Exact Worps I'vi6: Lavrév, OR BY AN ALLUSION TO DELPHI, APOLLO, 
OR THE WISE MEN 


In Greek Authors 


Aeschylus: Prometheus 309 (yiyywore cavrdv) 
Ion: Frag. 55 ed. Nauck 
Plato: Charmides 164E 
Phaedrus 229E 
Philebus 48C 
Protagoras 343A-B 
Laws 923A 
Alcibiades I 124A, 129A, 130E, 132D 
Erastae 138A 
Hipparchus 228E 
Isocrates: Panathenaicus 230 
Xenophon: Cyropaedia VII, 2, 20 
Memorabilia IV, 2, 24 
Aristotle: Rhetoric II, 21, 13 
Magna Moralia II, 15, 1213a, 14 
Philemon: Frag. 152 ed. Koch (Stob. Flor. 22, 4) 
Menander: Frag. 240, 249, 307, 538 ed. Koch 
Demetrius (?): On Style 9 
Diodorus Siculus: Hist. IX, 10 
Philo Judaeus: De © ug. et In. 46 
De Spec. Leg. I (De Monarchia) 44 
De Somn. I, 57 ff. 
Legatio ad Gaium 69 
De Mig. Ab. 8 (yivwoxe ceavrér) 
Dio Chyrsostom: IV, 160 R; X, 303 R; LXVII, 361 R 
Epictetus: I, 18, 17; III, 1, 18; III, 22, 53 
Frag. I. Ed. Schenkl. (From Stob. Flor. 80:14) 
Plutarch: Ad. Colotem c. 20 
Cons. ad Apoll. c. 28 
De Dis. Adul. ab Am. c. 1 & 25 
De Garrulitate, c. 17 
Demosthenes, c. 3 
De Inim. Utilitate c. 5 
De Pyth. Or. c. 29 
De Trang. An. c. 13 
E apud Delphos c. 2 & 17 
Lucian: On Pantomime 81 
Aristeides: Art of Rhetoric A’ 483 
Pausanias: Des. Graec. X, 24, 1 
Galen: De Prop. An. Cuius. Aff. Dign. et Cur. c. II (vol. V, p. 4 ed. Kuhn) 
Clement of Alexandria: Strom. I, 14, 60; II, 15, 70-71; V, 4, 23; VII, 3, 20 


. 
AS RE Lil - 


“KNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 101 


Hippolytus: Adv. Her. I, 18; X, 34 
Origen: In Cant. Cant. 56B 
Sextus Empiricus: Ilpds Aoyexods A, 266 
Diogenes Laertius: De Vit. Phil. I, 1, 13 
Philostratus: Life of Apollonius of Tyana VII, 14, 137 
Plotinus: Ennead IV, ITI, 1 & Ennead VI, VIII, 41 
Porphyry: Frag. on T'v&@ Davrdv (Stob. Flor. 21, 26-28) 
Athanasius: Frag. In Cant. Cant. (Pat. Graec. vol. 27, p. 1348) 
Libanius: Or. XII, 11 
Julian: Epistle 41, 420B 
Epistle to Themistius 260C 
Oration VI, 185A & 188A-C 
Oration VII, 211B-C 
Proclus: In Alcibiades I vol. I, p. 5 ed. Creuzer 
Cyril of Alexandria: Contra Julianum VI, 201B 
Hierocles: On the Golden Sayings of the Pythagoreans, p. 64 & 65 ed. Mullach. 
Damascius’ Successor: Dubitationes et Solutiones F 96 V, p. 156 ed. Ruelle 
Choricius of Gaza: Epitaphius for Procopius, p. 16 ed. Boiss. 
Stobaeus: Flor. III, 79; XXI 
Gregory of Pisida: Hexaemeron 633 
Palatine Anthology IX, 366; IX, 349; Appendix IV, 48 
Scholiasts on Iliad III, 53 vol. III, ed. Dindorf & vol. V, ed. Maass; 
Pindar, Pythian II, 34 & III, 60; Plato’s Phaedrus 229E; Republic 600A; 
Dio Chrysostom LXXII 386 R; Lucian’s Phalaris I, 7 
Hesychius no. 38 
Suidas 839 C, 831A, & on Thales 


In Latin Authors 


Varro: Sat. Menipp. TNQ6I ZATTON 
Cicero: De Finibus III, 22; V, 44 
De Legibus I, 22 (58-60) 
Ep. ad Fratrem Quintum III, 6, 7 
Tusc. Dis. I, 52; V, 70 
Ovid: Ars Amatoria II, 500-502 
Seneca: De Consolatione XI, 2-5 
Ep. Mor. 94:28 
Pliny: Nat. Hist. VII, 32 
Juvenal: XI, 27 
Tertullian: Apolegeticum 48 
De Anima XVII 
Ausonius: De Herediolo 19 
Ludus Septem Sap.—Solon 1-3 & Chilon 138 
Hieronymus: Epistle LVII, 12 
Ambrose: In Ps. CXVIII, IT, 13 
Hexaemeron VI, VI, 39 
Augustine: De Trinitate X, 9 (12) 


102 ““KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


Macrobius: Comm. in Somn. Scip. I, 9, 2 
Sat. I, 6, 6 
Sidonius: Carmina II, 163; XV, 50 


PASSAGES IN WHICH THE PRESENCE OF THE MAxIM IS APPARENT, THOUGH MORE 
or Less INDIRECTLY EXPRESSED 


In Greek Authors 


Heracleitus: Frag 116, Diels 
Pindar: Pythian II, 34 
Plato: Timaeus 72A 
Philebus 19C 
Xenophon: Hellenica II, IV, 40-41 
Memorabilia III, VII, 9; III, IX, 6 
Aristophanes: Clouds 842 
Aristotle: Nic. Ethics IV, 9, 1125a. 22 
Eud. Ethics IV, 9, 1169b. 33 
Philemon: Frag. 213 ed. Koch 
Philo Judaeus: De Mig. Ab. 185 & 195 
De Spec. Leg. I (De Circumcision) 10; De Sac. 262-265 
De Somn. I, 212 
Leg. Allegor. I, 91-92 
Epictetus IT, 8, 10-13; 14, 18-20 
Plutarch: Septem Sap. Con. c. 21 
Quo modo ad. poet. aud. deh. c. 11 
Lucian: Dialogues of the Dead XIV, 6 
Diogenes Laertius: De Vit. Phil. I, 9, 45 
Philostratus: Life of Apollonius of Tyana III, 18; IV, 44; VI, 35 
Lives of the Sophists IV, 525 
Plotinus: Ennead V, III, 3 ff.; VI, IX, 6 
Prophyry: Letter to Marcella 32 
Frag. in Stob. Flor. I, 88 
De Abstinentia 3, 27 
Iamblichus: Life of Pythagoras XVIII, 83 
Frag. in Stob. Flor. 81, 18 
Julian: Or. VII, 225D 
Nemesius: Nature of Man I, 16 
Proclus: In Alc. I passim, esp. pp. 85 & 277, vol. I ed. Creuzer 
Institituo Theologica, esp. LX XXIII, CLXVII, & CLXXXVI 
Olympiodorus: In Alc. I passim, esp. pp. 4, 7-8 & 10, vol. II, ed. Creuzer 
Golden Sayings of the Pythagoreans, 14-15 
Hierocles: On the Golden Sayings of the Pythagoreans, p. 157 ed. Mullach. 
Stobaeus: Flor. Chapter XXI; and CVIII, 81 


In Latin Authors 


Plautus: Pseudolus 972-973 
Stichus 124-125 
Cicero: De Officiis I, 31 (114) 


““RNOW THYSELF” IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 103 


De Oratore IIT, 33 

Phillipics IT, 68 
Horace: Satires I, 3, 22 
Seneca: De Beneficiis VI, 30, 5 

De Ira II, 36, 1 

De Trang. An. VI, 2-3 

De Vita Beata 27, 4-6 

Ep. Mor. III, 7, 10 
Persius: Satire IV, esp. vv. 23-24 
Martial: X, IV, 10-12 
Apuleius: De Dog. Plat. IT, 16 


FURTHER PASSAGES TOUCHING SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN THE CHURCH FATHERS 


In Greek Ecclesiastical Writers 


Irenaeus: Adv. Haer. II, 7, 2; 17, 5 & 8; V, 2, 3 
Clement of Alexandria: Strom. IV, 6, 27 
Origen: Comm. In Joan. XXXII, 18 
Gregory Thaumaturgus: In Origenem Or. Panegyr. XI 
Eusebius: Praep. Evangel. XI, 27, 5 
Basil: Homily on Ilpocéxe Leauge 
Hexaemeron IX, 6 
De Hominis Structura I, 1 
Sermo XX, 2 (Appendix) 
Ep. CCIV, 4 
Epiphanius: XXXVI, 264C; LXXIV, 4, 10; LX XVI, 11 
Gregory of Nyssa: In Cant. Cant. II, p. 806; ITI, p. 810 (vol. 44) 
Chrysostom: Homily on Matthew XXV, 4 
Cyril of Alexandria: In Cant. Cant. 1, 7 
Theodoret: De Nat. Hom. 39 
Ep. LXXXVI 
Dionysius Areopagiticus: De Div. Nom. VII, 469C & 470A 
De Eccles. Hierarch. IT, ITI, 4 


In Latin Ecclesiastical Writers 


Minucius Felix: Octavius 17 
Tertullian: De Carne Christi, 12 
Arnobius: Adv. Nationes II, 16 & 74 
Lactantius: Epit Div. Inst. LX 
Hilary of Potiers: De Trinitate XII, 53 
Ambrose: De Is. et An. I, IV, 15-16; I, VIII, 64 
De Excessu Frat. Satyri I, 45 
De Excid. Hierosol. III, 17, 28 
De Fide. V, 19, 237 
De Jos. Pat. I, IV, 20 
Hexaemeron VI, 2, 3; VI, VI, 42; VI, VIII, 50 
In Ps. CXVIII, III, 30; X, 10; XIII, 20; XVI, 11 
Ep. I, II, 8; XVII, 7 


104 “KNOW THYSELF”’ IN GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE 


Augustine: Confession X, V, 7 

Soliloquies IT, 1 

De Civ. Dei, VIII, 10-12 

De An. et Origine IV, Chap. 2-21 

De Trinitate I, 12; IX, 3-X, 9; XIV, 5-14; XV, 3, 6, 7, 13 

In John XXV, 16; XXXII, 5; LXVI, 1; XC, 1 

In Ps. LXV, 14; XCIC, 11; C, 8 

Sermo XXV, 4; LXVI, 18, 27, 36-37; XLVII, 23; LVI, 3; LVIII, 
13; LXVIII, 9; CX XXVIII, 8; CCXC, 1; CCXCII, 5 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


E. Barker: The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. New York, 1906. 
Baur: Das Christliche des Platonismus. Tiibingen, 1837. 
A. W. Benn: The Greek Philosophers. London, 1914. 
C. Bigg: The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Oxford, 1886. 
The Origins of Christianity. Oxford, 1909. 
F. A. Bohren: De Septem Sapientibus. Bonn, 1867. 
G. S. Brett: A History of Psychology. London, 1912. 
J. Burnet: The Ethics of Aristotle. London, 1904. 
Greek Philosophy. London, 1914. 
J. Connington: The Satires of A. Persius Flaccus. Oxford, 1893. 
F. W. Farrar: Lives of the Fathers. London, 1907. 
G. P. Fisher: History of Christian Doctrine, New York, 1896. 
J. G. Frazer: Pausanias’s Description of Greece, vol. V. London, 1898. 
B. L. Gildersleeve: The Satires of Persius. New York, 1875. 
Pindar, The Olympian and Pythian Odes, New York, 1890 
K. W. Goettling: Abhandlungen. Miinchen & Halle, 1851-1863. 
T. Gomperz: Greek Thinkers. New York, 1905. 
G. Grote: Plato. London, 1888. 
W. A. Heidel: Pseudo-Platonica. Baltimore, 1896. 
H. Hitzig: Pausaniae Graeciae Descriptio, vol. III, pt. II. Leipzig, 1910. 
B. Jowett: The Dialogues of Plato Translated. New York, 1892. 
S. Karsten: De Effatis Delphicis wyédty &yav et yr ceavrév. In Symbolae 
Litterariae vol. II, p. 57 ff. 
O. Lagercrantz :Das E zu Delphi. Hermes XXXVI (1901) pp. 411 ff. 
E. B. Mayor: Thirteen Satires of Juvenal. London, 1880. 
J. H. Middleton: The Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 
vol. IX, p. 282 ff. 
R. L. Nettleship: Lectures on the Republic of Plato. London, 1906. . 
W. H. Roscher: Die Bedeutung des E zu Delphi und die iibrigen ypdyuyara 
Aedguxd. Philologus LIX, pp. 21 ff. 
Neue Beitrage zur Deutung des Delphischen E. Hermes XXXVI, 
pp. 470 ff. 
Weiteres iiber die Bedeutung des E zu Delphi und die iibrigen 
ypaupara Aedkguxd. Philologus LX, pp. 81 ff. 
J. E. Sandys: The Rhetoric of Aristotle with a Commentary by E. M. Cope. 
Cambridge, 1877. 
L. Schmidt: Ethik der Alten Griechen, vol. II. Berlin, 1882. 
F. Schultz: Die Spruche der delphischen Saule. Philologus XXIV, pp. 193 ff. 
P. Shorey. The Unity of Plato’s Thought. Chicago, 1903. 
Aristotle’s De Anima. A. J. of Ph. vol. XXII, pp. 154 ff. 
G. Stalbaum: Platonis Omnia Opera. London, 1858. 
H. O. Taylor: Ancient Ideals. New York, 1900. 
T. Whittaker: The Neo-Platonists. Cambridge, 1901. 
E. Zeller: Die Philosophie der Griechen. Leipzig, 1892. 


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